Tales of the Horus Heresy: Remnants of Remnant
by Mojo1586
Summary: The world of Remnant as it was is no more. Whole Kingdoms devastated as punishment for defiance against the Emperor's Great Crusade and His greatest warriors, the Legiones Astartes. But Remnant survives through its people, survivors adrift in a cruel galaxy, carried along to service the same cause that burned their homes and slaughtered their neighbors. (Warhammer/Great Crusade AU)
1. Chapter 1

_**A/N: Just a little idea I was tossing around, might be a one-shot depending on feedback. A 'little what' had certain forces stumbled across Remnant during the Crusade. Pretty simple though any comments people might have are always appreciated.**_

 _ **(Disclaimer: I don't claim to own RWBY or Warhammer, those strictly fall under the purview of Roosterteeth and Games Workshop. This is just a passion project.)**_

* * *

 **\- Remnants of Remnant -**

* * *

 _ **Dragon of the XIIth**_

* * *

 _ **"Attack" is the only order worth remembering.**_

\- Dogma of the XIIth Legion 'World Eaters'

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 **-I-**

 **(XIIth Legiones Astartes Frigate "** ** _Daggerline_** **", 004.M31 Approx. - Lower Crew Deck Levels "** ** _Cisterns_** **")**

Yang Xiao Long smiled with bared and bloody teeth, continuing to do so even as cloth wrapped knuckles collided against the side of her skull hard enough to leave her blinking away motes of sickly starlight through strands of a brilliant golden mane before she responded in kind...

And how could she not? A throng of cheering onlookers roaring their ecstatic approval of the renewed violence.

The pounding thud of blows hammering flesh, of knuckles meeting bone and sinew. The cacophony of fists and blunt instruments pounding upon wrought iron gantries. Low hanging pipelines dripping with congealed sludge, and the thin mesh wiring rusted with oxidized iron all that separated them from the two savaged combatants gauging one another in the fighting cage beyond.

If one could even call it that...more a steel-shod hollow carved into a depressed vault of the chamber lined with chain and bolted scrap, the base of the decking underfoot coated with thick clods of dirt and debris pilfered at no small risk from the true arena situated in the upper levels of the ship.

A nigh on sacred place where their masters, the demigods of the Emperor's Crusade, clashed over matters of honor, pride, or simple lust for violence. Transhuman blood whetting the sands arterial crimson in the offering...

In comparison, this pale imitation was little more than childish sport.

And Yang loved every second of it...

All of the noise was good as music to her sore ears, a low heavy refrain of pulsing notes clapped in time with the fiercely driven tempo set by the crowd.

A rhythm pounding in time to every beat of the blonde's heart with every heated breath scented by the cloying stink of sweat and copper that she had come to crave. Heat building along her extremities that burned away the pain of injuries inflicted and left naught but strength and excitement in its place to drive her upright.

Broad-shouldered with lean muscled arms rendered thick by labor, hardship, and subtle gene-therapy, the young adolescent stood a bleeding mess of bruises, cuts, and contusions poised with fists raised.

A charm bracelet of thin chain weaved through with spent small caliber brass auto-gun shells and a single dangling jewel glinting like crystallized fire jangled lightly on her left wrist with every beat of her pulse. Seemingly ignorant of the vitae seeping from a deep gash along her hairline, painting her face in stinging wet warmth.

She could care less, lilac eyes glaring defiantly at the smug brute hunched opposite her in the pit.

"Feeling a little tired there, Blondie?"

Yang's opponent, a junior Armsman and low-deck Crew Rating by the name of Cardin Winchester, hocked out a gobbit of pink tinged phlegm onto the sandy decks. Reaching up a spade-like hand, fruitlessly wiping at the squashed leaking mess his fellow serf had made of his nose earlier in the bout, snorting like the irritated grox he so resembled.

" _Feh_...Thinking maybe after I finish putting you in your place, maybe we can continue this little spat back in my quarters, hmm? Heard you Artificiers are supposed to be pretty good with your hands, little massage, kiss this little boo-boo better, eh?"

The target of his ' _affections'_ raised an blood slicked brow, a hearty chuckle escaping her lips despite the brawler's best efforts to keep to the mood. "Aw, look at you thinking? Mommy Winchester would be so proud."

She puckered out her lips and leaned forward pulling at the hem of her tattered undershirt suggestively until she couldn't keep up the charade any longer.

"Using words like 'boo-boo', _ha ha_! Oh shoot, give me a _mom-ment._..oops." Scattered bouts of laughter, hoots, and groaning welled up from within the crowd. All well familiarized with Xiao Long's particular brand of humor...or lack of it.

For his part Cardin just puffed up cracking his bruised knuckles for efficacy, busted face contorting even more so then before with an animal snarl and a snort of red mucous down his barrel chest. "Okay Blondie. you asked for it...!"

"Actually you did Momma's Boy." Yang straightened, taunting with a come hither motion, eager to see this end after catching sight of a familiar red cloak fluttering beyond the barricade. "And just so you know, think I'd rather mount an Ogryn. At least they can usually come up with better material than ' _Blondie_ '. Smell nicer too, go figure."

 _"Graaaaaaagh!"_

Seems the response that little tease got from the audience was just a little too poignant for the Armsman to bear, Cardin throwing himself into a wild screaming charge, arms splayed out to hem the blonde Brawler in.

Simple enough tactic true, but given his size he seemed confident enough it would work out for the deck Rating, and with any other opponent if just might have.

A brute of a bruiser all tattooed muscles half as hard as his ego. Youthful like she was and showing similar signs of gen-hancement to augment his already sizable bulk, strength, and reflexes well beyond what could expected of mortal humanity's usual stock.

All the better to serve at the behest of the Legion in whatever sordid capacity was required. In his case cracking skulls while putting down the occasional turf scuffle or sump fight.

And that wasn't all the adversaries held in common either, Cardin was Remnant-born too. One of thousands serving across the length and breadth of the 203rd Expeditionary Fleet since the Legions of the Emperor had first appeared in the skies of their home world all those years ago.

Taken in the tithes as punishment for their resistance in the face of the Imperium.

Another one of her people struggling to survive at the feet of their brutal Masters, and Cardin had fared better than most trying to scrape a living on the _Daggerline_.

A bully who knew the position he held over his fellow crew and he could get away with, often boasting of how he'd even been considered a possible candidate for recruitment into the Legion. To be given a chance to be remade as one of mankind's finest heroes in this greatest of endeavors, serving alongside the vaunted ranks of the Astartes and perhaps even the legendary Primarchs themselves.

To ascend as something greater...the same sort've pitch Yang remembered from poster adds scattered throughout her childhood. Only instead of Huntsman or Huntress it was something beyond human, and rather than the creatures of Grimm it was an entire galaxy full of horrors.

Would that the serf have been given the chance on Remnant, maybe in some other life, but not this one...she wouldn't dwell on what might have been, she couldn't.

Winchester evidently thought that to even be considered as an initiate was an honor that made him special, even if he didn't quite make the cut for whatever reason...and maybe it did.

But the simple fact was that Cardin Winchester wasn't a Legionary, not even close despite his size and mass.

He might well bellow and roar like one of the World Eaters, but his clumsy gait could never possess the raw killing grace that accompanied a Space Marine with even the subtlest movements. His hands might break and tear, but never with the sheer thoughtless ferocity and ease of an Astartes. His mind, self-centered and cruel, would never feel the bleaching bite of the cortical implants that haunted the Sons of Angron with every passing moment they weren't embattled.

Things Yang knew of all too well, having seen as such with her own eyes more times than she wished to count in her years of service to both the Company and her Master.

No, Cardin Winchester was certainly _not_ a Legionary. He was simply human for all the changes wrought on his flesh, and the golden haired serf would do her damnedest to see his skull beaten into the sands.

With a quick breath and a growl she brought her arms up close and darted forward in a lunge to close the distance between the opponents in a heartbeat. A maneuver the Armsman certainly hadn't been expecting if his wide-eyed stare was anything to judge, thinking the smaller woman might retreat or try to flee.

Doing neither, Yang turned her gait at the last second with a quick weaving one two step just like Taiyang Xiao Long had instructed his eldest daughter, ducking underneath a meaty bicep the size of her head and using the sudden opening to eagerly punish the Rating for his aggression, his lack of forethought. The crowd ecstatic, pushing and shoving in their attempts to get a better view of the prelude to violence, their energy and emotion only feeding the fire...

The first first jab she threw collided with his bared abdomen, leaving her knuckles stinging as though she'd just struck rockcrete, even so it did the trick and stole the brute's breath in a solid splatter of red. That second strike was easier, the adrenaline pumping steadier through her veins and dulling the ache.

Meaning all she could feel was the oh so pleasant give of ribs buckling beneath her ministrations. Her charm bracelet jingling about her wrist with the heady impact all the while.

" _Uwaagh_...you pathetic little blonde...!?"

"Really dwelling on the whole ' _blonde_ ' thing, aren't ya? Heh, got other... _rrgh_ qualities too y'know!?"

Such injury would have put any normal foe out for the count if not far worse, Cardin merely staggered forward before swinging his arms out in flailing arcs hoping to catch her. Instinct driving the brute to lash out as any injured animal would, blinded by pain and fury, seemingly trying his best to emulate the Legionaries he so admired in his frenzy.

Unfortunately for him, their Lords among the World Eaters were trained and conditioned for such mindless fighting. Meanwhile what skill he had bled away with his anger as surely as blood dribbled from his smeared nostrils, Yang dodging the wide hooks easily enough with a grinning snarl as she threw punch and elbow through her opponent's nonexistent guard one after the other in endless succession.

Not so much beating her opponent down as she was demolishing him as she might a stubborn obstacle, bone by bone, brick by brick...

To her fellow Remnant-born's credit, it took a full minute and several more hefty blows than she'd expected before Yang could truly say she'd finished the fight. Especially when he'd made a grab for her hair, the whole world going red for a moment or two. Dodging a final lurching uppercut, snatching hold of his wrist and using the bully's own momentum to yank him bodily over her shoulder and onto the deck in a plume of stinging dust.

Ironically enough, it seemed Winchester would get his wish of having her on top of him after all, though these circumstances might not be so enjoyable. At least not for him, she wondered with a smirk, completing the maneuver with a savage war cry that riled up the throng into yet another frenzy, baying for more blood.

This wasn't one of _those_ fights however, and Cardin was still useful to the _Daggerlne's_ compliment, despite his being a prick. So Yang showed mercy, opting merely to twist his wrist in her grasp, dislodging his whole forearm from its socket with a wet _*POP*_ that left the Armsman writhing yet not crying out, he wouldn't dare.

Even beaten with his face in the dirt he still had his pride, and there was the dangling piece of jagged crystal hanging inert from a braided cord about his mottled neck to consider, same as hers.

With an exultant cry of triumph she brought her arms up over her head, rallying the crowd to even greater heights even as she searched for a glimpse of red or silver. As she searched, the organizer of the fight came out with her winnings in hand, making quite a public show of support despite urging her to take the fall. Bleating out his passable oratory, a pair of attendants working hard to drag the semi-conscious Cardin to his knees.

One struggling to keep the youth upright while his companion tore off a strip of gauze from the fighter's shoulder, exposing the gleaming finger length red cut for all to see. A mirror to that of the one bleeding at Yang's waist even now and the many others written across their bodies.

Unlike hers however, the attendant picked up a handful of clumped sand and shoved it forcefully into the wound, drawing at last a moan from the defeated as the wound was colored a shimmering black that the brawler found she couldn't quite look away from...not even to bask in the feeling of the crowd chanting her name like one of the heroes they all served.

 **"...** ** _YANG! YANG! YANG! YANG! YANG!..."_**

* * *

 **-II-**

" _Yang_!"

The sound of her name being called with such ecstatic vigor had Yang turning the instant she limped into the cramped vacant side-chamber and its flickering lumen lit gloom, or at least she'd thought it had been vacant.

An assumption immediately and rather violently disproved by the crimson blur that slammed into her, tackle hugging the blonde serf with enough force to almost pitch her head over heels.

As it was, she still wound up on the ground wincing from the sudden ache in her backside coupled with the slowly fading hurts of her other injuries. None overly serious, some even fading to some degree thanks to...well, they were fading, that was all that mattered.

That and the minuscule young woman, barely more than a girl really, hovering over her staring with those big silver eyes through a curtain of choppy black hair that bled to a deep crimson at the tips.

Rather noticeable qualities, even if it weren't for the tattered red hooded mantle she wore about her shoulders over the oil stained tunic she wore, little better than rags. Or the porcelain white skin bleached by lack of exposure to sunlight, just like they all were...except for Yang, for whatever inane reason. A Dust charm jangling from the mantle's clasp, shining dimly in the low light.

"R-Ruby?"

Yang shook her mane out as she fought to clear her head, ruffling the girl's hair affectionately while at the same time gently shoving her knobbly knees and elbows off the worst of the bruising. Seeing as that extended to most of her body below the neck...well, easing to a seated position was certainly better than standing.

" _Ah_...Aw c'mon, Sis. You know better than to hit me up like that, especially after the night I've had." She played up her reaction, affording her little sister a wink and a smirk just for her piece of mind. "Would it kill ya to be a bit gentler? I'm a delicate flower, bruise real easily."

"Yeah, I saw that." Ruby Rose pouted, crossing her arms across her chest and sitting in a puddle of red fabric. The image impossible not to chuckle at, even if she had to stop at the sour look on the red head's face. "What are doing down here, Yang?"

"Huh? That's a bit direct." She faked a pained grimace, one that predictably left Ruby scrambling to shake her head fast enough. "What? Not happy to see me?"

"No! I mean yes! Wait, I mean...!?"

It was too easy to rile her up, the sight of those wide silver eyes sending another thrill of emotion lancing through Yang's chest. Not the heated promethium burn of a fight, or any such thing. This was calm, relaxing, the pain of her injuries leeching away as she felt the other girl's Aura pull at her own unconsciously.

"Not like this, I don't. All beat up, fighting in the pits again...it's scary every time. And it's not like you need to do it either."

And like that, back to the old argument, her sister's ghostly pale hand absently drifting to scratch at her left shoulder. The meat of which, as Yang knew all too well despite how the young girl arranged her mantle and clothes to hide it, bore the numeral 'XII' sigil branded deep enough to scar into the into the flesh. A small symbol but one that held deep meaning to all who saw it and knew of its provenance.

To view it was to know that Ruby was bonded into the sworn service of the 12th Company of the XIIth Legiones Astartes.

To bear the mark was to act at the Legion's behest and in turn granted status and favor above all others in rations and comfort, to be recognized as necessary and deserving of protection by dint of skill or loyalty. And for one to harm such a person, well...to harm them was akin to harming the Legion itself through denial of a valued tool, and to risk the Astartes' displeasure.

No sane individual would wish to test the displeasure of the World Eaters, not if they expected to live a long life or suffer a clean death...and Yang had been the one to earn it from her Master, and the one to see it passed to Ruby in her stead.

She herself might suffer and go hungry, but by her hands her little Sister would want for nothing. Not for her the life of scraping for shifts on the maintenance crews, crawling through sump decks, or more...sordid means some other females in the _Cisterns_ resorted to in their attempts to get by.

No, not for Ruby, and for that reason Yang clapped a hearty hand onto her sister, dragging her into a fierce if gentle embrace.

"Y-Yang s-stop...can't...can't breathe!" The red robed teenager squirmed and struggled against muscle like corded steel, smiling despite herself with the same happy glow that the eldest sibling cherished. "Yang, I'm serious!?"

"Well so am I." The blonde eased up, smiling broadly at those puffed out cheeks. Trying to ignore the reminder of how small and frail her sister was in comparison to her gene bulked physique. The two barely seeming to resemble one another in the days before Yang had been taken to the upper decks. "Maybe I just wanted to borrow Mom's cloak for awhile, ever think of that?" She tugged on the mantle of the long deceased Summer Rose jokingly, eliciting a squeak as Ruby snatched it back and bundled up even tighter in its depths. "Especially if your going to be giving me the _cold_ shoulder like this, that's nasty, Sis. It's been awhile since I've had time to myself."

Frowning at the poor attempt at a pun, Ruby just sighed and plopped back down on her backside, the two sisters sitting across from one another feeling the constant thrum of the _Daggerline's_ mighty plasma reactors beating throughout the plasteel structure.

"So it's true, the Legion's stopped again haven't they, I mean the ship had. I overheard one of the hanger deck crewmen complaining about it over drinks while I was uh...taking a closer look at this air cycler in the distillery that's been acting out. Just looking, I wasn't...um, you know...?" She fumbled with her hands, tapping her fingers together as though to give them purpose.

"Fixing it, you mean?"

Yang frowned but said nothing further, wondering just how many times she'd cautioned her sister about her tinkering. If even one wayward soul blabbed about Ruby's particular 'talents' to a tech priest well...she didn't know if the Legion brand would protect her from the dogs of the Mechanicum.

" _Gah_...doesn't matter, you're right though. The Fleet's situated in orbit over this garden world the locals call 'Ambria'. Looks pretty enough from the picts I've seen, sorta like home was. Wide green plains and forests spanning over the continents, people in shiny armor riding about on these big stubby lizard things. Ooh and the castles, tall enough to touch the skies, some of em'. Big as Beacon Academy was, I'd wager."

Her voice swelled adventurously, trying her best to paint a picture of the unfamiliar world for one who barely had any true memories of living in such a place herself. It was a tradition they'd kept to since the earliest days, alone in the dark, trying to keep thoughts of Remnant fresh through comparison.

"Shame they went and told the Iterators to drink piss and...er...you get the idea. Whole Company's been deployed in response, been too long since the last battle, since they've last..." She trailed off, not wholly comfortable with conveying the contents of what she knew or could intuit of the Compliance of wondrous Ambria, floating in the void so close but yet so far.

Not that she needed to go into any great detail, both Sisters were well aware of the type of war left in the wake of their Masters. Especially after so long aboard ship, with nothing to slake their bloody appetites on but emotionless combat servitors, each other, or the rare wayward serf unlucky enough to stand out.

Neither of them were unfamiliar with violence or impropriety, growing up aboard a Twelfth Legion vessel had stolen what ignorance either Sister could claim. Though some standards had to be enforced, at least in Yang's opinion. It was her job after all, the last one her father had given her.

"Captain Varren and Khalos are down their too?" Ruby broke the silence, once more fingering the mark on her shoulder. "Fighting, I mean? That's why you suddenly have free time, isn't it?"

" _Lord_ Khalos is, along with the rest of 1st Squad from what the other Serfs can discern. I did say the _whole_ Company." Yang corrected firmly, hating that she had to even as she said it. Having to be the responsible one. "And of course they're fighting. What else would World Eaters be doing?"

Certainly not showing mercy she expected, not with a full Company of the Emperor's most brutal shock troops deployed on its surface.

The blonde suspected that Ambria, or Two-Zero-Three Seventeen, would be rendered compliant by the end of a solar week if not sooner, their culture brutalized and their industry...what was left of it, turned to supporting the Crusade's efforts. If they didn't face 'Totality' for the affront of daring to challenge the bloody Sons of the Red Angel.

"Look, it's been so long. No need to dwell on the little stuff, eh Sis?" She said with a bright smile, downplaying the bloodbath no doubt being inflicted on the world below, focusing instead on the young woman growing before her eyes. "Don't know bout' you, but I'm starving after that little show. Whaddya say you and me hit up the Old Man for some grub for old times sake, maybe show me what's changed down in the decks? Heck, maybe if you keep that smile on I'll see about sneaking you into the Legio Audax Hangers again. Way Yatsuhashi tells it, they've got an honest to Throne War Hound Engine down there awaiting maintenance. Says he can get you up nice and close for a look."

It was a cheap ploy, and Yang knew it. Still, to see the awe playing across Ruby's face at the prospect of getting an up close look at one of the Omnissiah's god-engines in the flesh and not just the grainy after-action picts Yang had managed to procure, was well worth it.

Taiyang Xiao Longs's last pleading words before he'd run off to confront the fearsome invaders, giants with snarling helms ripping and tearing themselves from the burning edges of the forests with weapons that howled like Grimm. Pearlescent white armor awash with chunks of crimson gore, matted hair, and other things no child should ever have to see.

His final choking agonized moments echoing at the back of her mind as the pair picked themselves and moved down the maintenance tunnel, Yang ruffling those crimson tipped curls as the two smiled unabashed.

A simple order rising over the distant cheers emanating from the pits, the screams of transhuman monsters driven to frenzy by the implants in their skulls stored like munitions in the dark cargo shafts below, or the ever present heart flutter of the great warship's engines...

 _"...Look after your Sister, go! I'll be right behind you, just keep Ruby safe!..."_ Her father might have failed both of them that day, but Yang would not. She'd do her duty by her family, she'd do what had to be done, whatever it took be it pain or humiliation.

That was her pledge, her oath of moment carved as deeply into her as the flawless triumph rope cut into her flesh or the paper strips favored by the Astartes of lesser legions to flutter about their armor. The Imperium, this cruel new existence, wouldn't take Ruby.

Such was the fire that kept the Dragon going in those darkest nights amidst the screams and the nightmares, and the bastard Emperor himself and his Legions could drown the stars in the heavens and burn the galaxy just as they had Remnant before she'd let that happen...

* * *

 **-III-**

 **(Imperial Designate: Two-Zero-Three Eight upon Compliance, Formerly "Remnant", 994.M30 Approx.)**

 _To most of the ascendant Imperium's vast multitudes of data archivists, lex-historians, and the like documenting the travails of the Emperor's Great Crusade, the events of what transpired counted little more than as yet another victory in a long list of victories._

 _Simply another compliance action inflicted upon yet another distinctly non-compliant world, selfishly refusing its place in the wider tapestry of mankind's dominion of the stars._

 _Remnant, a newly discovered Death World along the fringes of the known Galactic rim reclassified Two-Zero-Three Eight, in simpler terms the Eighth planet brought to Imperial compliance by the might of the 203rd Expeditionary Fleet._

 _Rather notable upon closer Auspex observation in a variety of ways, especially to Imperial astrocartographers stationed at the time. The planet's surface possessive of a temperate climate not all too dissimilar to what is depicted in ancient records concerning that of Ancient Terra. Accompanied in its travel through the void by an orbiting satellite moon that at some point in time had experienced catastrophic seismic upheaval which drastically impacted the world and its surviving populace millenia earlier. An event suspected to have played a heavy role in the world's separation from the galactic fold of Humanity in the age of Old Night._

 _Later examination and study by Mechanicum Explorator Fleets would seem to indicate the anomaly stemming from a pre-existing Warp-rift anomaly situated in relatively close proximity to the world as a situation similar to that of Caliban, adopted home world of the First Primarch._ _Two-Zero-Three Eight however can be considered_ _far less stable in the way any such a term could be applied to the empyrean._

 _A phenomenon also believed to be responsible for heightened levels of of demi-psionic interference emanating from the world itself. An influence featuring heavily among its populace and seemingly amplified by a newly encountered mineral locally referred to as 'Dust', utilized as an energy source but disregarded as a tithe resource due to the substance seemingly losing chemical reactivity upon exaction from the surface._

 _Similarly remarkable, if for far different reasons, was the fact that Remnant's human populace had seemingly thrived despite the presence of an existing predatory genus of alien xeno-form. Collectively referred to as 'Grimm' **(REVIEW ATTACHED ARCHIVAL DATA)** , these hyper-aggressive creatures presented in a disturbing variety of physical variants and were a primary challenge to humanities dominance. Their presence kept at bay by the power of innovative if nigh heretical technological advances utilizing Dust as well as the combined military might of the four leading centers of governance, the so named 'Kingdoms of Remnant'._

 _Beset by locals both xenos and man, Imperial Army Forces were pushed to call upon the aid of Legiones Astartes elements of the XIIth Legion 'World Eaters' stationed aboard, supported by elements drawn from the IIIrd Legion 'Emperor's Children' and XVIIth Legion 'Word Bearers'._

 _The subsequent pacification recognized as perhaps the largest gathering of these particular forces in such a scenario until this point in the centuries long history of the Great Crusade. Resistance of both hostile elements broken under sheer overwhelming force, the snow-capped wilds of the planet's Northern Hemisphere falling before the glorious perfection of the IIIrd with little incident. Abhumans, titled as Faunus, that were reported to be inhabiting the Southern continent displaying aggressive action upon encountering Ambassadors of the XVIIth Legion and purged nigh wholesale in a sea of fire visible from orbit but for scattered survivors._

 _And across the deserts and fields of Vacuo and Vale respectively strode the World Eaters, none capable of standing before their righteous fury._

 _By all accounts it was glorious, another world claimed in the Emperor's name. In truth, it was a campaign rife with discord. Scattered events playing out upon the surface firmly solidifying the reasons as to why such gatherings of these particular kindred were so rare in the minds of all involved..._

 _Such differences are to be celebrated however, and all should remember and be ever grateful that such beings as the Astartes stalwartly serve the Emperor, and the Emperor serves only Mankind..._

 ** _\- Records_** **drawn from the assorted musings of Balimund Nave, Acclaimed Archivist of the Remembrancer Order assigned to accompany the 203rd Expeditionary Fleet. Presumed Deceased.**

* * *

 **\- LOG TERMINATED -**


	2. Chapter 2

_**(Disclaimer: I don't claim to own RWBY or Warhammer, those strictly fall under the purview of Roosterteeth and Games Workshop. This is just a passion project.)**_

* * *

 **\- Remnants of Remnant -**

* * *

 ** _Faithful of the Emperor_**

* * *

 _ **War is only won when every enemy is dead. A pacified enemy is still an enemy.**_

\- Attributed to Angron, Primarch of the XIIth Legion

* * *

 **-I-**

 _Fire filled the skies on the day the Legion came to the surface of Remnant. That much she still remembered_ _clearly enough, even after so long..._

 _The thrumming drone of the air itself rattling the panes of glass in her window waking her abruptly, the acrid smell of smoke making the young blonde gag and cover her face as she rose groggily, eyes burning...what she would only learn later to be the atmospheric particulates cast up by focused lance strikes from orbit._

 _Flying fortresses striking forth with batteries capable of shattering whole worlds, dedicated solely to the elimination of strategic threat upon the surface._

 _Anything that might seek to harry the follow up assault landing. The killing ax blow descending from above to sever Vale's spine..._

 _Contrails of brilliant light just barely visible over a dawn tinged a bruised scarlet by ash, dozens of them, falling in fiery arcs down towards the wounded landscape of her world._ _Some like the shooting stars she'd stay up at night to watch sometimes from her sill, others curving off every which way towards their own destinations._

 _Her Father had burst through her door with a whimpering Ruby in his arms then, wrapped up tight in the cloak her mother had knitted for her, little Zwei nipping at his heels. The jolly Huntsman more_ _terrified in that moment than she'd ever seen before, though trying his best to hide it behind a parent's calm._

 _All that did was scare her more, Taiyang ordering her to grab the small duffel he'd asked her days before to pack when reports first played of Aliens in the sky on the T.V...Invaders...Saviors...Returning gods...Harbingers?_

 _Raised voices from her Father and Uncle that ended in more and more arguing. Questions of 'Why?' and ''How?', words like 'Faked' and 'Negotiations' bandied around on the Scroll Network until her Guardian had taken that away as well..._

 _News about the Aliens...about the Noble ones, the Chanting ones, the Bloody ones..._ _She'd been curious then, of course, had even asked questions like she'd been taught. Desperate to understand._

 _Repeating them once again now without reply as her Father dragged her behind him down the stairs and out the front door to where Uncle Qrow stood waiting for them. A sword as big as she was held loosely over his shoulder, looking exactly as he had in the woods so long ago...no, he was angrier than back then, scared too..._

 _He and Dad had argued again, shouting words like 'Ozpin' and 'Ironwood'...her Uncle got really angry at that last one, but she couldn't be sure why._

 _She was confused, everything blurring._ _The burning scent was even worse in the open air, little Ruby crying and coughing, Zwei whimpering..._

 _Taiyang's grip on her wrist had been so tight it hurt, trying to hide his own fraying nerves._ _But he was a Huntsman sworn to fight monsters, and while he might have known he couldn't stop what was coming, he could at least try to save his daughters._

 _He could at least try...even though he wouldn't succeed. Not against the thing that tore itself howling from the woods, this..._

* * *

 **(Imperial Designate: Two-Zero-Three Eight upon Compliance, Local Designate: "Remnant", 994.M30 Approx. - Patch Island, Kingdom of Vale)**

 _'...This...This can't be happening...!?'_

She faltered in place unable to speak, hearing Ruby's shrill cries echo from nowhere and everywhere, orbs of violet fixed on the armored behemoth casting her in its vast shadow made larger than life...

Massive shoulders adorned with symbols and emblems she could hardly make out heaved in time with rasping breaths that spilled as vapor from a snarling helm. Glowing green lenses regarding her as soullessly as the Grimm had so long ago, like Prey.

Fingers twitching spasmodically across the haft of a chain toothed ax bound by thick chains to a mailed gauntlet, jagged teeth chock full of clogged meat dripping red droplets into the grass and across her shoes. Buzzing armor of pearly white edged with blue, thick with carved markings and stained nearly pink by arterial spray.

Blinking in startled surprise, drawing in an involuntary breath that left her choking from the coppery charnel stink of it, of this _thing_.

Her meager height putting the young dragon face to face with the grisly trophy hanging from the invader's waist by a knot of bedraggled golden hair, stained a dull brass from dirt and...worse. It's face gone slack with eyes vacant, lacking the usual disapproving frown or easy smile she knew so well, utterly unmistakable...

 _'...This can't be real, no!? No, it can't be **...ah!?'**_

Before Yang could cry out, vomit, or even take a faltering step - whether to run or maybe in her confusion try and reach out to touch that familiar face, she didn't quite know - she felt her arm wrenched roughly from its socket with a sickening wet * _pop_ * that left her howling!

Her kicking feet leaving the ground far behind as the bloody knight none too gently hoisting her upward so that pitiless green stared into trembling violet.

Examining her absently as pain unlike anything she'd ever felt coursed through her catching fire as she felt the sickening sensation of bones grinding together under flesh. So much agony at once that she couldn't breathe, her youthful system going into shock and her mind reeling from the sudden trauma while golden energy smoldered in her hair...her 'Semblance', Dad had told her...

Something akin to a voice oozed from the monster's grille mouth, a guttural growl of odd syllables and harsh intonations. Ruby crying out her name once again as tears, Ruby...her little sister...the one this thing was going to hurt next. That stark revelation, combined with the chilling sight of the 'prize' swaying from its belt, overcame the agony.

And in it's place came something new, something born of the confusion and fear, all the sadness and helplessness.

Anger, pure and honest...no, more than that. _Rage_...

 _"RRRRRRRAAAAGGGGHH!"_

Deep down in her conscious mind she knew she couldn't hurt this creature, just as she hadn't been able to harm the Grimm so long ago when they'd come for the siblings, but she didn't care. Ignorant of all but her efforts to hurt the thing that had stolen away her last parent and ruined her life, kicking and thrashing.

Throwing herself forward in the giant's inexorable grasp, screaming and spitting like a wildcat, golden locks tumbling about her face in matted bunches.

 _"MONSTER! I'LL...Gragh!...I'LL KILL YOU! I'll...Rrg-ah!?"_

Whatever she could manage as many times as it took to make this thing hurt like it had hurt her. To keep it from even thinking of laying a single finger on her sister. Her gaze burning hot, not with tears but with that potent fury in her core that threatened to burn her up inside... She'd hurt _it...NO!_ Kill it, she'd...!?

Gaping as her attacker laughed then, a throaty chuckling cackle that rattled in her ears like breaking glass or tumbling stones. Renewing its efforts a fraction and twitching a finger on the hand that held her almost dismissively.

The crack of bones and the blinding shock of the injury heralding a world of red tinged darkness, colored liberally by her sister's fading screams...so much **_red_**...

* * *

 **-II-**

 **(XIIth Legiones Astartes Frigate "** ** _Daggerline_** **", 004.M31 Approx. - 12th Company Armourium Chambers, 1st Command Squad - Private Cells** **)**

...Red like the flashing entry runes of her wall mounted chronometer flashing incessently, long past the appointed alarms she'd set to wake her.

..." _Hah_...whuh!?"...

The echoing _* **CLANG** * _of grinding pistons split what relative silence remained within the dimly lit space, ringing through the confined cell and startling the Artificer back to aching awareness like a Beowolf's backhand...or at least what Yang imagined such a thing might feel like.

Beowolves having been rendered quite extinct by the Legions long before she'd ever gotten the opportunity to enjoy the experience firsthand, them along with the rest of the so-called creatures of Grimm. Just another hostile Xenos species wiped out in the wake of the Emperor's Great Crusade...another culture subsumed.

Groaning, she propped herself up, straining her groggy senses in an attempt to hone in on the noise that had disturbed her. Instinct instilled long ago in the dark cramped decks of the ship where brutes, deviants, and sometimes far worse mingled freely. The notion of defending oneself second nature by this point, honed by long proximity to violence inflicted and received.

Her hand instinctively grasping for the multi-tool discarded carelessly on the workbench before her, seeking some -if any- kind of weapon she might use to defend herself. Another instinct, similarly earned.

Meanwhile the other limb clambered for support she simply didn't find, skidding off the oil slick surfaces of the tabletop and putting the yelping blonde face first onto the grimy plasteel decking of the cell. Loose parts and fine instruments alike clattering down beside her... an experience which, by in large, did nothing good for her cracked ribs or throbbing skull.

White hot needles of torment driving the air from her lungs as she lay there panting, feeling the chill metal surface against her bruised skin. Gasping appreciatively for mouthfuls of overly humid recycled air that mercifully tasted of rank post-human sweat, lubricating oils, and cleansing unguents rather than a razed city's ashes...

 _"Gah..._ Damn it, c'mon...!?"

Reality, it tasted like bitter sweet reality, the vivid dreamscape fading rapidly. Old anxieties and memories of long-distant Remnant fading back into the far reaches of her psyche where they rightfully belonged.

Fuel for the Pits, or otherwise something else to drink away in the seedier shipboard hovels in her dwindling spare hours. Like she had after seeing Ruby off to the Mechanicum decks. Retreating to wallow in her post victory high in one of the rare few places on this ship that was even somewhat, if in some small minuscule fashion, her own.

Like all things utilized by the Astartes of the XIIth, the chamber she occupied had once been little more than a simple spartan space dedicated only to that which aided in the making and prosecution of war.

Poorly maintained lumen strips and dull glowglobes flickered to reveal sparsely adorned walls daubed with Legion iconography. Slabs lined with crude hooks hung with various implements of wargear from curved blade to stock firearm, overflowing work stations set in pits upon which lay the varied tools and detritus indicative of Yang's assigned role.

Spare fibre bundles and loose servomotors sitting precariously alongside eclectically shaped shards of battered ceramite and half-empty cans of adhesive paints.

All of it artfully arranged in something vaguely approaching organization, at least according to the blonde's own preferences.

Not that she hadn't added her own touches here and there over the course of her years aboard ship. Scattered garments and nibbled foodstuffs strewn about in corners along with stained sheets for bedding. Mingling with illicit Scrolls _erm_...data-slates, and the occasional knick-knack of her own artistic design. Even a sheathed short blade buried gifted to her at the start of her service years before, hidden among stained bed sheets, maintained fastidiously but rarely drawn.

In essence, some souls may have considered the cell an overly cluttered sprawl. A number including the one it nominally belonged to, and to whom she owed her service.

To Yang however, it was her own little slice of the _Daggerline_ , which in a way was fitting considering she spent most every waking hour huddled in its meager confines.

Her efforts taxed simply by maintaining the standards expected by her Lord.

The World Eaters not wholly a fighting force known for their restraint, both in personality and in the treatment of their wargear. Such that it had nearly driven Ruby to tears, the young woman taking what most might describe as a slightly less than healthy fascination with weapons and such. Some holdover quality from the tales of Hunstmen and Huntresses, and now those of the Legions and the mighty vessels that carried them through the stars.

Yang couldn't say she wholly approved, still it was a better obsession than many aboard ship and less proscribed by far. That and it gave her little sister reason enough to visit, which her Master entertained sparingly as it was.

All together, the Cell felt almost something akin to a home in a way. Curious, as in other Legions she'd heard it said that such private chambers were mostly used as places for moments of self-reflection and solace by the Astartes.

Things both rarely experienced or sought by the Primarch Angron's sons, the majority of their time better spent in the Practice Cages butchering servitors and on occasion each other, though oft times the Legionaries elected to use the Gladiatorial Pits...the _true_ Pits, for such bloody contests.

Spectacles of such martial skill and savage brutality both, that it made the old televised memories of the Vytal Festival Tournament look exactly like what it was, children playing at war. Some Legion bouts held to similar tenets, restricted by arbitrary standards such as first or third blood, others to _Sanguis Extremis_...to the death.

Yang had witnessed more than a few of the latter cropping up even in these last few months firsthand despite the best efforts of Captain Macer Varren and the Officer Cadre to reign in their Warriors.

Beings that had once been men reforged, driven by rage amplifying cortical implants and combat stimms. Squaring off against one another in titanic bouts that would have seen even the hardiest mortals reduced to twitching paste...

From what she could guess at, the bite of _Butchers Nail's_ had been fiercer of late. Partly the reason this latest campaign on Ambria, or Two-Zero-Three Seventeen, had progressed so rapidly these last few days.

The World Eaters were being let off the leash, ripping the enemy apart before they could even think to do the same to one another...

" _Ugh_...Bloody fugging Throne...?"

Her fingers instinctively sought the crystal charm hanging about her wrist as the Artificer worked herself up to her knees, imagining the warmth the Dust shard hadn't carried since it had left her Home world's atmosphere behind.

An old ritual, more a habit really, and it did help somewhat. Distracting from the headache of aches and hurts both physical and mental, helping her mind latch onto more pressing matters.

Such as the post-human juggernaut fresh from battle, standing hunched at the open threshold to the Arming Chamber. Green tinged photolenses regarding the sight of her prostrate before him in the semi-darkness just as coldly as in her nightmares, bringing the entire sordid experience back again. Their positions having been much the same then too, and the gulf just as far.

Yang knew this Legionary by the subtle markings carved across his battle plate, symbols of rank and prestige, tally cuts denoting particularly memorable kills. His profile unmistakable, even among a Legion of similarly armed and armoured killers.

Khalos Reid, Sergeant of the XIIth Legion's 1st Command Squad under Captain Macer Varren. A creature more than a man who'd taken an interest in her and her sister years ago on Remnant.

The monster who'd butchered Taiyang Xiao Long like chattel...

 **"I never took you for the groveling type, Xiao Long."** He spoke in a measured tone, cocking his head idly to the side. His voice rendered to a throaty rasp through the filters the his helm's snarling vox-grille. Heavy thudding footfalls carrying the warrior towards the central Arming Station on snarling servos and thrumming power couplings that her hands had worked to maintain, his overwhelming presence filling the space utterly without even trying. **"Get up, it doesn't suit you."**

Dread seized as her muscles locked in instinctive fear response, that familiar coppery stink of foreign viscera filling every sense, stealing her breath...and then Yang Xiao Long relented. The bite of the crystal's rough-cut edges biting into the meat of her palm, pain bringing clarity and a vivid flare of inset anger that seethed into the usual resigned sarcasm tinged with bitterness as she moved to comply, snatching up a tanned hide jacket and making herself half decent.

Not that he would care for a bit of inked skin here and there...the concept of sexuality and modesty long since stripped from the Emperor's angels as she understood it. Probably for the best, their kind would make for poor partners.

"L-Lord Khalos, what...what a surprise." The Artificer stammered through a forced half smile, spitting golden hairs from her mouth while working herself up quickly to her feet with only a modicum of stumbling and muttered cursing. Effortlessly switching from the base Low Gothic spoken by most all of the Imperium, to the Legion's own bastardized tongue of Nagrakali. "I...I was told you and the rest of the Captain's Squad would be remaining planetside a few more days yet, the Compliance...?"

 **"Is over and done with."** He spat back with barely a nod of acknowledgement, the World Eater's tone conveying clearly what he thought of that statement. His left gauntlet rising to work at the neck seals embedded behind his gorget, more grunting threats forthcoming as the tremors coursing in the limb prolonged the task unduly. **" _Grr..._ accursed thing...!"** The Legionary began only to draw his hand back abruptly, drawing in a deep rattling breath before resuming the task with far greater efficacy.

Yang remained quiet and unassuming throughout his rant as she strode lightly in his shadow towards the work tables, plucking up scattered tools and depositing them in her belt loops. Doing her best to remain present and ready to act, all without making herself too noticeable or moving too quickly.

Wary of setting off the Legionary by accident. Of joining an ever growing statistic of Legion Serfs who'd made that fatal error and paid the price.

So instead she focused on her role, a trained eye already noting the fresh scars upon her Lord's ceramite shell. Some self inflicted and clearly meant to be preserved to the best of her ability, most others the typical result of XIIth Legion warfare in practice.

In other words, a distinct lack of dodging oncoming fire or care for personal safety of any sort. She could understand that sentiment well enough, her own bruises stolid proof.

" _Feh_...Looks like you tried picking a fight with a grox and lost." She broke her silence, leaning in to examine the extent of the damage more closely with a heady sigh while schooling her mane back into a long tail. "I take it the other guy looks worse?"

Shallow rents and chips from what must have been sustained volleys of stubber fire covered much of the front armour facings, settled alongside impact craters inflicted via explosive detonation and even the charred whorls of super heated paint from an energy weapon of some sort.

All of which individually and unequivocally lethal to most foes, though proving of little obstacle to a warrior of the Legiones Astartes. Especially those driven to frenzy by the _Nails_ for which injury was an irritant and brutality was exultation...but it was always worse after a fight. Always.

 **"I wouldn't know, too many faces. Difficult to remember them all."** Khalos said, mistaking the humor for the literal as he so often did. **"The Ambrians...the foe, they'd had artillery situated about their Capitol. So much noise all at once as we engaged. Goruuk fell moments after the Captain gave the order to charge, then the _Nails_ bit deep..."** He trailed off with a rattling whine of tensed joints, fingers juddering a moment before finally succeeding in popping the seals with whining hiss of escaping pressure and a dark chuckle.

"I...understand, my Lord." She nodded her head deferentially, trying not to envision what would be left of the unwitting world the 203rd Expeditionary Fleet had encountered weeks ago. The answer she'd given perfunctory, expected.

 **" _Hnng_...**I'm certain you do at that."

Abruptly he tugged the scarred Sarum-pattern helm free, discarding it carelessly to the metal decking to reveal the distinctly human features underneath - or what had once been human but now stood so much more and yet so much less. A stark contrast of closely shorn sweat-stained brindle curls inter-played with strange mechanical tendrils that appeared to have been nailed into the base of his skull. Cortical implants, the things that guided the Legion as much as their brutal Lord Primarch.

Stern bloodshot eyes of amber gold looking out from a leathery tanned face littered with dark stubble and a patchwork assortment of livid scars. The most prominent of which a jagged line curling from his right cheek down to his chin, forcing his thin lipped mouth into a perpetual snarl that had needed no help in forming then and certainly not now.

A fiery gaze now aimed down at his frowning serf as she picked up the helm with a grunt of effort, even for her gene-hardened muscle. Yang barely able to suppress a groan at the rattle of delicate loose components echoing within, figuring each clatter another few hours hunched over a work station.

From there it was but simple routine, accepting the World Eater's proffered bolt pistol, its barrel warped from the heat of prolonged use but simple enough to replace, before moving onto the warrior's panoply. Chipping away the clogged dirt and gore of yet another battlefield and another world with a mechanical efficiency born of experience.

Ignoring the flesh caught in armor joints, the congealed viscera sluicing into the grates that she knew she would later spend hours scrubbing away. Beating back the scent with cheap cloying incenses and more distilled spirits as she'd learned.

Long minutes passing in spurts of actinic sparks and grinding whines, the young woman methodically cleansing the wargear of Ambria's lingering touch. Furtive half recited tidings to a Machine Deity neither truly believed in fresh on her lips.

They both knew the true reason behind why he preferred she see to this personally rather than employ those mindless servitors devoted to such purpose. Though perhaps he also enjoyed watching her grovel despite his earlier assertions. Nevertheless she knew what he expected, and as always she did her best to hold back. To prolong this little game as long as...?

"You've been to the Cisterns again, haven't you?" Khalos uncharacteristically was the one to breach the awkward silence, something unusual enough that it caught the serf off guard and made her pull away. "Against my order, I can smell it on you. Did you honestly think I wouldn't take notice?"

Oddly enough he didn't sound angry or irritated, any more than any World Eater always did at any rate, casually giving voice to his Serf's disobedience.

"I hadn't realized I stank so much, my Lord." She replied carefully, attempting to but not quite able to meet those burning pupils. "Apologies."

"Of which you know I care little, Xiao Long." The Legionary shifted on the pedestal, his lip pulling back to reveal fangs of acid etched metal. Another growl, or perhaps a smile, maybe even both. "Tell me you won at least, that it was worth the effort?"

She nodded as she resumed her ministrations, unable to conceal a wry grin that survived even his wintry glower. "The ship was so quiet with the Legionaries absent, my Lord. It's just so...so _stressful_." Her expression twisted into a demure pout, one entirely wasted on the World Eater. It's why she did so often as practice, quite openly at that. "And a girls gotta vent her frustrations somehow, y'know?"

" _Hmph..._ is that so?" Khalos' mouth twisted as he hocked up a gobbet of pink tinged saliva and spat it to the platform's base, the metal sizzling upon contact with the chemical venom his glands produced. "Perhaps I should've worked harder at finding you a mate? Something virile to keep you occupied, better rutting than having your brains dashed in the muck of some waste duct, eh?"

"I said I fight in the pits to get _rid_ of my hangups, not add to them." Yang grumbled through gritted teeth as she pulled, wrenching a jagged shard of shrapnel free of the adamantium mesh of his left cuisses, a leftover from the artillery strikes he'd described.

One of several studded across his armor, and if even one had penetrated any deeper...too much to hope for.

"Though I must admit, the prospect of playing brood-mare and pumping out some ugly sump-brute's blonde spawn sounds oh-so enticing." She shook her head, examining the shell casing before tossing it into a slowly growing pile laying beside her. "Especially when you call them a 'Mate', really makes a lady feel special...my Lord." She added as afterthought, wondering if not for the first time how much Khalos truly cared for such pleasantries.

Some within the Legion did, very much so at that. Rank and structure shouted from the battlements lest anyone seem to forget just how high above the rest of the human population they were.

Others still were more in line with their father, rumour having it that the Red Angel hated to be referred to as anything more than simply Angron. Though rumour also had it that he hated most everything, so maybe it mattered little.

 _"Ahh..._ Would you prefer a female, then?" The World Eater replied after a long moment. A low rumbling from overhead as her tool juddered in a shaking grasp, stinging her face with stray sparks. "That can be arranged rather easily, given you aren't so unattractive by mortal standards."

"I think I'd prefer a change of subject, in truth."

A glower splitting her tender face, rebelling fiercely against the warmth coloring her cheeks. Not that she found herself abashed by the subject, she'd just rather keep what amounted to her personal life and what she did in her sleeping quarters separate from _him_ of all people.

"Appreciate the offer though, I'm so fortunate to have you looking out for me, Lord." She offered, tone dripping with sarcasm.

"More fortunate I find your foolhardy disregard endearing, Xiao Long, and that your skills are so highly prized." Somewhat reluctantly, she felt her breast swell in pride at that. The rare praise unexpected, that feeling of being recognized that all young folk craved... "Besides, it would be too much effort to train another Artificer, though in truth I'm certain that Sister of yours could be properly...?" He paused, no doubt noticing her now stiffening posture and the skipping of her heartbeat. Satisfied he'd finally gotten a proper reaction, scarred lip curling cruelly. "Which brings to mind, your weapon seems to have caught even Varren's notice."

"Hmph, that so?"

"It is."

Yang bit her lip, chomping down on the swell of anger at the mention of Ruby.

Little Ruby, too young and much to kind to be wrapped up any closer in the culture of the VIIth than she had been already. Bad enough she'd had to grow used to the Pits, the infighting for rations rife throughout the lower decks, the overarching violence inherent to this life...

That was why she'd been branded with Khalos' mark rather than her big sister, a potent symbol and warning to all aboard the vessel of her status among their Masters. It saw her fed, saw her safely through the corridors, and all it had taken was Yang's oath of service.

A meager price to pay, to arm and armor a creature she hated for a cause she begrudgingly saw as necessary.

"He calls it 'pretty', too much so for a Legion like ours. A weapon fit for one of the Phonecian's peacocks." The Legionary shifted, giving no indication he was aware of Yang's simmering temper or showing any concern if he did. Raising his right arm and glancing at the clenched power fist encasing the limb, a discerning scowl marring ravaged features. "I can see his point, it seems...excessive."

No doubt he was referring to the ' _embellishments_ ' Yang had included in the outward design prior to engagement upon the surface.

Resembling an overlarge gauntlet of white and blue ceramite, the cumbersome piece of wargear possessed the capacity to generate a focused anti-matter field across its surface when activated. Effectively disrupting any solid matter the wielder came across in the spectacularly brutal fashion that marked out many of the Imperium's complement of arms.

This example had been something of a passion project, Yang working closely alongside a few of the _Daggerline's_ more human tech adepts, as in those that could still be swayed by a few pointed compliments and furtive smiles. Their sorcery inciting the weapon's spirit to even greater fits of activity, or so they claimed.

In finer terms, it was a volatile bastard of a machine. Spitting and angry, just like the one who bore it into battle. Ruby had even managed to lay her hands into its workings, naming it one of the most beautiful things she'd ever seen.

Not that Yang didn't agree for by the throne it was gorgeous, inlaid with finely sculpted pieces of gleaming brass along the knuckles and vambrace and painted with stylized designs of coiling dragons and leaping flames. Their finely detailed scales and vibrant embers trails having been spotted in places with dried viscera that had somehow survived the storm of conflicting energies and become part of the overall piece, safely contained within the disruptive aegis.

There was something telling in such a thing, fitting as were the fresh scars and chips across its surface. A tool of war truly blooded...and it brought a hard pit to her stomach to see it as such.

"That's nonsense!" She carefully hid her unease behind a sarcastic scowl and a broad smirk of careworn pride. "Bet the Captain's just jealous is all. I mean that's quality Xiao Long work you've got _on hand."_

' _Endearing_ ' he'd called her...that was good to know. It set the pace of this little back and forth.

"Yes, I suppose I do at that." Khalos frowned at her strange stressing of the words, the attempt at a pun clearly not translating overly well from Gothic to Nagrakali. _"'Ember Celica'..._ Is that supposed to mean something? Or did you pick it on a whim?"

She drew in a sharp intake of breath unbidden, running a tentative hand across the surface of the Legionary's gauntlet where the name lay carved along the vambrace in Remnant's flowing script. Drawing it away swiftly as the limb beneath that armor twitched and spasmed in sympathetic reply to the pain engine in its wielder's skull.

"I didn't..." Her thoughts drifting back to the drawings she used to make under her father's praising instruction, her dreams of Signal Academy, of life as a Huntress... "...nothing, my Lord. It's not important, I just thought it sounded cool... _appropriate_ , I mean. Appropriate..."

They both knew it to be falsehood, though luckily Reid didn't seem to care much either way. Allowing the weapon to flicker to potent life in a flash of crackling crimson fury for but a moment.

" _Hmph_...It was certainly ' _appropriate_ ' enough for the Warmaster's entourage on the surface." The World Eater grunted dismissively in retort, a tick of annoyance creeping onto his posthuman features at his Serf's oblivious surprise at the news. "Just how long have you been idling, stupid Girl!? Line runners from the XVIth Legion translated in system nine standard hours ago with word from Lupercal himself. Reinforcements apparently, though they were hardly needed." He added with a contemptuous growl of grinding flex-steel. "Even brought one of Lorgar's piteous priests with them, Viridis they called him... _hnng..._ the way he talked down to us, Varren should have given me leave to...!"

Meanwhile Yang simply blinked away the crimson afterimages, processing her Master's news in bewildered shock as he devolved further and further into threats as the _Nails_ dug further in the post-battle low, his abused brain misfiring signals that manifested as ticks and twitches.

She should be doing her best to distract him, or at least get clear and allow some poor servitor to endure the Astartes' wrath. But she didn't, her mind raising...

The XVIth Legion here in the middle of frontier space? Sons of Horus Lupercal, the Warmaster's own, the greatest of the Emperor's Chosen traversing the void. And a Word Bearer along for the ride... Even now she still remembered scattered shots displayed in her living room, leaning forward into the TV unable to believe her wide eyes.

Granite clad giants lined in flowing cuneiform spewing flame across an island of begging Faunus back on Remnant, singing hymnals all the while...the Chanting Ones...so much fire, she'd never seen so much...

"...travel to the Istvaan System... _rrg-ah..._ Some inane backwater the Raven's rendered compliant, only they did a piss poor job of it. Seems the Planetary Governor's gone and whipped a coup, and the Lupercal want's the XIIth Legion's aid in making a show of his...displeasure." The XIIth Legion, not just 12th Company? The whole of the World Eaters coming together in one place? "And we won't be alone. No no no no _NO_!"

Yang cursed aloud at the sudden exclamation, recoiling backwards from the morbid grin spread across those thin mutilated lips. Pain ticks deepening the furrows of flesh even further as the Legionary regarded her with a sort of excitement she usually associated with the practice cages.

A warning voice in her skull screaming the need to vacate the space and quick, but she couldn't move, the muscles in her legs little more than water.

"Mortarion, the Phonecian, even Horus Lupercal himself, along with every Astartes they can scrounge from their sordid broods along the way."

Khalos gritted his teeth with a groan, sweat beading his brow as he mastered himself once more. Yang's pulse still beating nevertheless at the glazed look in those maddened eyes, even as the Astartes lurched gracelessly from the platform and de-coupled _Ember Celica_ from his armor's feeds. Practically tearing the piece of Wargear from himself in his seeming haste to be rid of it.

"Blood of the Throne imagine it, Xiao Long...a war like no other seen since the damned Greenskins fell on Ullanor, no _hnng_...not even then!"

No, not even then. Yang finding it difficult to truly imagine the scale, her only experience being with the Expeditionary Fleet at large in the aftermath of Remnant.

Four whole Legions...Four Legions _AND_ their assorted Primarchs... _Primarchs_ as in plural! Four of the Eighteen! Liege lords of the Imperium, Commanders of its armies, leaders of Transhuman warlords beyond any force in known space and history...

Even the force that had claimed Remnant and dispatched the Grimm, that most ancient of enemies that had plagued her home, had been but an offshoot of Fleet elements. A pittance of the force falling upon these poor upstart fools for daring to rise against the Emperor's authority, against the Warmaster.

She felt a flicker of worry at the thought, fear and pride as a human being, then disgust at such elation and...and...A flicker of golden heat roiled through her at the conflicting emotion, palpable as her eyes flickered crimson and her hair smoldered.

Her Aura...the power of her Soul...reacting in sympathy. Attempting to mend her hurts, the small lacerations earned for her labor vanishing from her fingertips along with the ache in her chest and skull. And not just her physical ills, an upsurge of confidence filled her, sending her emotions soaring...

A heady sigh filled the chamber, multiple lungs exhaling in audible relief that swept that brief feeling of freedom aside. "Finally, took you long enough."

She blinked angrily, more so at finding her eyes wet than at the caustic tone. Watching as Khalos rolled his heavy shoulders and massaged his temples with a look of utter contentment. Tension bleeding from every muscle in his face, seeming almost happy...her Aura doing more than easing her hurts. That much she knew, even as the Astartes staggered, his breathing slow and measured.

' _Endearing_ '...perhaps, but Yang knew full well the real reason the World Eater fought back the urge to break her for her insolence as so many before him had done to servants far less deserving.

His only weakness, if it could be called that. A salve only she could offer, so far as either knew. Serenity...

For whatever reason she knew not why, simply being within her vicinity at such times drew pressure away from the ever-present bite of the _Butcher's_ _Nails_ drilling their pains deeper and deeper into the meat of his mind with every breath if only for a moment.

A moment of absence, of genuine _peace_ for a tortured mind who craved as such... and then it was done, the pain returned, and so did the anger.

"Oh Throne."

Yang backed against the wall and slid down it, the power of her soul spent as the Astartes took his leave from the chamber with a shake of the head and a final muttered expletive. Feeling the chill of the void seeping through the thin fabric of her shirt as she stared woefully into the helm he'd left behind in retreat, knees curled to her chest.

That snarling faceplate from nightmare leering back at her with a hunger potent enough to swallow whole civilizations in it wake.

Undeniable, unstoppable, the might of Mankind...

"Oh gods." She even forgot the teachings of the Imperial Truth, falling back onto the old abandoned legends her Father had shared. "This...This just getting...!"

* * *

 **-III-**

 **(XIIth Legiones Astartes Frigate "** ** _Daggerline_** **", 004.M31 Approx. -** **Lower Crew Deck Levels "** ** _Cisterns_** **"** **)**

"...serious. You've not mentioned to your Sister the nature of these gatherings, have you? If the Legion were to discover...!"

Ruby strode onward, moving with purpose through the winding maze of humid maintenance decks and dimly lit access byways that had earned this part of the ship its nickname. Passing by oil streaked gunnery ratings and hard eyed armsmen that all nevertheless hugged the walls as they caught sight of that telltale tattered cloak and tried to avoid sneaking glances underneath the raised hood.

A behavioral awkwardness the young Remnant-born expected and hardly even noticed anymore, knowing the other crew members that might have barred their way all likely fearing the brand on her shoulder.

The reprisal it could bring, a reason why all usually went out of their way to avoid the silver eyed girl like pox...well, not all thank the Throne.

At the moment however she found herself distracted, her brow was downcast and her hand fingering one of the many charms on her Dust bracelet, one in particular. A brass charm worked into the shape of a dual headed eagle, one set of eyes gazing into the past, its opposite towards the future yet to come.

Her thoughts dwelling on matters beyond the worried seeming companion doing his utmost to avoid attention. A task a man like Yatsuhashi Daichi, his already prodigious growth further augmented at the hands of his Mechanicum masters though perhaps less subtly than Yang, was singularly poor at performing. He was a kind soul however, that's what mattered especially below decks in those early years.

"I only ask because...Ruby? Ruby, are you quite alright?"

"Huh?"

She jumped looking about, face as red as her cloak, surprised to find her fellow crewman staring down at her rather worriedly. Balking at the realization that she'd simply been nodding her head for the past few minutes along their path and he likely expected an answer.

"O-Oh, Yang? No! No, of course I haven't!" Ruby shook her red highlights fervently, walking beneath a nest of snarled intake couplings that Yatsu had to almost crawl on hands and knees to avoid. "Not...Not that I wouldn't want to! It's just I-I don't think she'd really understand even if I tried. And if she doesn't..."

She trailed off, trying to imagine -as she had been for the past few days- how divulging perhaps this most dangerous secret to her sister might go right, as well as the innumerable ways it could go so horribly wrong. Yatsu expressing his agreement solemnly. "Yes, from what I've seen of Yang Xiao Long, she can be quite...stubborn. Not that a strong will isn't a potent blessing. Only, given her placement in the Pits and responsibilities within the Legion, however..."

...however it was that very closeness itself, to the Legionaries and those that represented their interests, that presented that most potent of dangers. That of discovery, of scorn and persecution...

"You were wise to hold such matters in confidence, yet I asked if you were alright?" Yatsu concluded with a concerned if kindly smile seeking to hide his own relief, laying a hand across her shoulder in as chaste and gentle a manner as his bulk allowed. "It's never easy to carry a secret, Fox and I often struggle with Coco at times, but especially so if its from your own family. Given your situation, I couldn't imagine bearing such burdens."

"It's fine, I mean it's probably for the best, isn't it? I'd probably screw it up and say the wrong thing anyway, then we'd really be in trouble." She manages her best attempt at a smile. The pair approaching the end of another innocuous corridor, hesitating for mere moments before ducking behind a loose service panel marked with the same symbol as that Ruby carried through which lay a web work of moldering service vents.

One of several hundred nearly identical sections intersecting and crossing like arteries throughout the strike cruiser's circulatory system _._ Paths for those mindless Servitors and lower ranking tech adepts responsible for maintaining the myriad inner workings needed to keep the ship functioning.

Those same ways Ruby and Yatsu navigated now, the latter with a fair bit more difficulty than the former. Following a trail of innocuous marks and waypoints that none but they and those within the same circles would know to seek out.

Finally, after what seemed like hours but could only have been minutes, they arrived at a final porthole. An edifice long oxidized by the moist heat of the space and sitting in such a manner most would have thought it immovable. Just as those that had arranged the space had intended, a faded icon embossed across the edging of one panel in flaking gold enamel.

"Don't worry, Yang doesn't suspect a thing. I'd swear to it in _His_ name." Ruby piped up as they approached, stepping aside and allowing Yatsu free access to the final aegis. Her hands crossed across her breast, fingers splayed out in imitation of spread wings. The mark of the Aquila, the mark of Imperium, _His_ mark...

"There's no need for such a pledge, I believe you." Yatsu reassured her, answering the symbolism of the gesture with a firm nod before heaving the slab of metal towards on squealing hinges, muscles straining with that final potent effort.

Head bowed respectfully, Ruby stepped passed her friend and moved into a spacious ancillary chamber. A vaguely cylindrical junction point that marked the convergence of similar tunnels as the one they had traveled along, rarely used and never intended for gatherings such as this. The cavernous space within lined with votive candles and hanging strips of recycled scrip, charms and tokens left in reverence at the foot of a mural that dominated a whole segment of a crumpled metal wall.

A figure of gold rendered inexpertly upon crude canvas by the nevertheless loving hands of a community. A mish mash of humanity from all corners of the ship, a few dozen in total. Enginarium hands and rag-toting wastrels rubbing shoulder to shoulder with finely adorned upper-deck scribes, carapace-clad Armsmen, and what were clearly members of the mortal auxilia of the Imperial Army of several ranks. Some bearing leatherbound books, other dataslates, some little more than scraps of parchment stained yellowed with consistent handling.

Some Ruby knew by reputation if not by face, others quite the opposite, even some she didn't recognize at all with a flash of momentary alarm.

A young woman maybe a few years older than she herself was lurking towards the farthest edges of the gathered crowd drawing her attention. Raven black hair framing a striking face that peeked out from the depths of her own hooded cowl with amber yellow. Despite such features, Ruby found she was having difficulty keeping her in focus, the black tunic she wore appearing to almost blend into the shadows, except a runic symbol embossed in silvery grey over her heart and shoulder. A shattered moon wreathed in cuneiform script, not unlike that which lingered in the furthest reaches of her memory.

A newcomer, yet the quality of her robes suggested a person of station? They almost seemed similar to the duty-wear Yang on occasion wore, if far more formal and in far nicer condition.

 _'...Who might she...!?'_

For the briefest instant their gazes locked, Ruby swiftly breaking the contact before she embarrassed herself further and vanished into the depths of her hood, cursing her impropriety. She should have known better, of course she should have.

Such behavior would be considered rude, especially in this place. Some content to reveal themselves openly in this sacred space, others less so for fear of discovery, which was their right. Even being here they risked so very much, yet they came regardless.

Still, she couldn't help a flicker of unease. A furtive glance confirming the woman now had her eyes to the mural, examining it with a sort of somber appreciation with hands clasped before her as though in...no, clasped together in prayer as many were throughout the congregation. This similarity easing the tension in Ruby's chest before Yatsu moved beside her, barring the newcomer mercifully from view.

It was a trepidation not easy in passing, but pass it must. For while newcomers represented danger, they also presented opportunity. A sign that their ideals might be spreading further, that more might embrace the beliefs she and so many others held as reality.

A reality daubed in flowing golden script at the mural's head, shining even in the dim candlelight and arranged to be visible no matter where one stood in the space...so long as they looked with reverence toward their Savior, of course.

Towards the one true guiding light of Mankind, He who had lead their species from the darkness and even now worked to bring them into the light.

That message a declaration, perhaps one of the few that truly mattered in a galaxy beset by so much war.

 _...-"REJOICE, FOR I BRING YOU GLORIOUS NEWS. GOD WALKS AMONG US. THE EMPEROR PROTECTS"-..._

* * *

 **\- LOG TERMINATED -**

* * *

 _ **A/N: And up goes another chapter, certainly took me long enough, Happy New Year btw.**_

 _ **Know there are probably gonna be questions, one of the biggest of which is probably going to be Yang's Aura. She can use it, but unlike in canon she never really got any training so its natural uses (healing her wounds, making her sturdier) is about the best she can manage.**_

 _ **I'm also treating it as something different from Psyker power, similar but not quite which will be explained later if this continues. Rather than making the Nails react negatively, it has a sort of soothing influence, which if one's read anything to do with the World Eaters wouldn't be something so easily overlooked with that lot.**_

 _ **Khalos keeps her around and somewhat content, and Yang helps him in return if more than reluctantly.**_

 _ **As for Ruby, the title applies most definitely to her. Seen a few stories with a similar premise, and given some thought it does seem kind of appropriate.**_

 _ **Anyway, feel free to shoot me any questions, comments, or thoughts y'all might have my way. Always appreciate hearing feedback. Thinking I'll cover what Weiss is up to next tme around. -Mojo**_


	3. Chapter 3

_**(Disclaimer: I don't claim to own RWBY or Warhammer, those strictly fall under the purview of Roosterteeth and Games Workshop. This is just a passion project.)**_

* * *

 **\- Remnants of Remnant -**

* * *

 ** _Songstress of the IIIrd_**

* * *

 _ **Great art so often fails to find an audience with the intellect to appreciate it. Sometimes I am filled with woe to think that no one in this blighted millennium has the wit to see the scope of my brilliance.**_

\- Fabius Bile, Lieutenant Commander of the Emperor's Children

* * *

 **-I-**

 **(Imperial Designate: Two-Zero-Three Eight upon Compliance, Local Designate: "Remnant", 994.M30 Approx. -** **Misshū Village, Kingdom of Mistral)**

Prefector Fulvio Gervasius, Palatine Blade of the vaunted IIIrd Legiones Astartes, finally allowed the crackling energies cast by the curving edge of his power spear to die away alongside the fading adrenal rush of a battle won. Planting the weighted butte of the master-crafted weapon in the loose soil, standing poised upon the apex of a broad grassy hillock in the shadow of the blossoming tree he'd claimed as his charge.

His position affording suitable vantage by which to survey the full extent of the day's culling in the hastily cleared killing valley below.

A site upon which several dozen specimens of the ravenous Grimm Xenoform this planet boasted in virulent abundance had come spilling from the shadows of the verdant forest surrounding the sizable outpost community, designated 'Misshū' by its inhabitants.

Classically rural and lying far outside the range of this continent no...this _Kingdom's_ capital. According to reports drawn up by iterators and collaborators from amongst Remnant's...from amongst Two-Zero-Three Eight's ruling functionaries such as this General Ironwood that it was something of a recreational landmark. The area boasting several examples of geothermal springs and sites of natural splendor that attracted commerce and patronage from across the surface of the world.

Beautiful, invigorating, and woefully unprepared to endure the savage nature of the danger they'd faced.

Animalistic in aspect though remarkably variable in appearance and function aside from some consistent factors, the Grimm had been considered a present and potent threat to the various cultures of Remnant stretching back as far as their admittedly limited historical records allowed. Their source, be it of Xenos origin or some horrific misstep in the development of a biological weapon by some civilization passed, was unknown.

Aggressively invasive even by the standards of foes the Legions had encountered previously, hardy and excessively lethal, and predisposed to exterminate sentient life...or at the very least Human life.

In fact, it was actually surmised that these abominations hunted through and were drawn by some sort of psychic extrasensory affectation that responded to negativity in its intended victims.

In effect, they smelt fear, craved doubt, fed on disorder. All things upon which Misshū's inhabitants had fallen back on with the coming of the Imperium of Man in the misguided paranoia that had persisted and grown strong with the doubts of the stubborn and terrified.

A paranoia that would be dispelled by the light of illumination, and a threat that would be dispatched by those perfectly forged to fight it...

 _-"Well then, that was commendably...bracing, I suppose."-_

Cassian, the most recent addition to Fulvio's squad and the youngest of their troupe's number, voxed from several dozen meters distant as he made a repeated circuit of the treeline. Bolt pistol thundering every so often with percussive thunderclaps, each one doubtless signaling the end of another Xenos beast. Such simply the way of things...

- _"Persistent vermin, are they not, Prefector?_ _One can certainly see why the Mortals might have faced difficulty in dealing with them._ _"-_ His arm lowered, mag-locking the sidearm to his thigh when finally satisfied he'd made his point. - _"Shocking that they've lasted as long as they have done, what with beasts such as that roaming the wilds."-_

Fulvio shifted his weight, regarding the slowly dissolving carcass of the mammoth insectoid Xenos curled at the foot of his chosen perch. A 'Deathstalker'...

Near equal to a Land Raider in size and of clearly Arachnid nature, its forelimbs ending in broad pincers and it's body sheathed in a glossy black carapace thick with bone colored armor. That long tail which only minutes before had reared up, tipped with a glowing poisoned barb, lying motionless behind it. Severed by a sweep of his spearhead, that formidable exoskeleton cratered by bolt fire, its skull cleaved down the middle.

The Space Marine Force Commander had declared that not one Xenos would take the hill and disturb the colorful branches of the cherry blossoms he's found so beautiful upon his arrival. Not while he still breathed, pledging his life and honor in its defense, more than even the village in truth if he were truthful with himself.

One of his own personal challenges as it were, a task he would oft set for himself upon engagement.

To win a battle with only one arm unbound, to take an enemy champion's head by his skill with the blade alone, to hold a specific piece of ground or reclaim it before all others...quirks to promote the difficulty of the engagement where appropriate, but one in which he found fulfillment.

As the Phoenician taught in his great work, _Attainment of Perfection..._

 ** _"...To seek Perfection is to forever seek challenge. For only through adversity can the scope of one's own superiority ever truly be appreciated_ _..."_**

+" _Hmph...Nothing so special. The Orks back on Erastus IV put up more hint of a struggle, and those wretches were starving."+_

The huffing cadence of Silvanus Akitor cut across the channel with a chuckle similar to a crumbling cliffside, the eldest of the Palatine Blades perusing the fields nearer to the Prefector's own position. Executing those Grimm crippled rather than slain outright in the intervening skirmish.

 _+"...Tried using numbers themselves in some feeble attempt to overwhelm us, I recall. Curious how such fetid Xenos breeds all seem to think alike, isn't it?"+_

"And it served these Grimm much as it did the Greenskin, amounting to the same result at any rate." Fulvio acknowledged the comparison, unable to help a small quirk of the brow at his elder's characteristic reminiscing. "Though a tad bit too overconfident, Silvanus, are you not? Have you seen yourself, your armor is disordered."

+ _"Heh, you mean this meager scratch?"+_ The older Legionary rumbled forth a hearty chuckle from his multi-lung, rolling his shoulder to throw the teeth and claw marks scoring his left pauldron into greater relief. Though to his lasting credit, the eagle winged symbol of the legion daubed across it remained unmarred. Inviolate in the face of the Xenos. _+"Aye. Forgive me, Prefector, I felt it only sporting to offer something back to the blighted beasts. To slay so many of them so easily, why not allow them a chance to leave a proper mark?"+_

A swift downward thrust saw the point of his power saber driven home into the neck of a still stirring lupine beast, or 'Beowolf' as the locals named them.

A perfect killing stroke, the displacement field crackling about the blade's tip effortlessly parting muscle tissue to sever the spinal column beneath. The beast shuddering with a final piteous whine before dissolving entirely in that curious manner they all appeared to share and for which the apothecaries could offer no concrete explanation.

-" _Our Brothers aboard aboard the Stormbird are reporting heavy casualties amongst the avian 'Nevermore' breed."_ \- Cassian chimed in, Fulvio nodding as he stared up at clear skies once filled with flocks of violent tracer rounds and tumbling dark shapes. -" _Seems the beaked horrors weren't expecting their prey to bite back so dearly."-_

 _+"Disappointing. When those so-called 'Huntsmen' described the efficacy of such creatures upon our arrival, I'll admit to expecting more of a challenge."+_

Silvanus continued his diatribe with a hoarse grunt, cocking his head back to the borders of the village where a large crowd was gathering in an audience. Stunned townspeople gazing at the trio in stark amazement, drawn from their homes and safe havens by the cessation of conflict and a morbid curiosity inherent to the species.

The most affected of all of them those handful dressed in the gaudy attire Fulvio had come to associate with the Hunter Caste, their innovative shifting weaponry held loosely by their sides unbloodied, or otherwise gripped in tense white-knuckled claws as they stared upon their betters.

A waste...

It had been they who had brought news of the oncoming assault, just as it had been they who'd scorned the Legionaries arrival when they'd disembarked from their Stormbird. Decrying the Emperor's Children as monsters and invaders little better than the beasts, stating outright that such a horde drawn by their presence couldn't possibly be stopped and it would be best to flee and save who they could.

The Legionaries had, as was to be expected, disagreed with the notion of retreat and the loss of such natural splendor. Silvanus especially had come within mere moments of dispatching the loudest of them, given pause only by his Prefector's insistence that they refrain from inciting further panic amongst the populace.

Atlas and Mistral...both would be better without their kind. Relics of a past to be purged along with these Creatures of Grimm, one mind and one monster at a time.

 _+"How are we supposed to prove our dominance when faced with such chaff? We deserve better than this novelty."+_

- _"Something to get your aged hearts pumping again as they used to, Brother?"-_ Cassian called back, derisive mirth clearly evident in his timbre. _-"To call this slaughter 'Sport' is a passable excuse. Though are you so certain those scratches aren't just your reflexes dulling in old age? From what I hear these beasts supposedly better with time, a shame you aren't quite so fortunate."-_

 _+"Feh...I'm not yet so withered I must take such lip from a preening chit like yourself, Boy!"+_

The older warrior clapped a gauntlet to his breastplate, the Ceramite surface showing pitted gouge and scratch marks. Minor signs of wear that had gone purposefully untended by the Artificiers, signs of battles fought and wars won long before stepping on Remnant's soil.

Each one inflicted by an enemy that the Legionary had acknowledged and later honored in his own eccentric tribute.

 _+"Besides, it's gaudy plate like yours that see other Legions think us all pampered dandies. Such marks and wear are a Warrior's badges of courage, a sign that I for one am not afraid to get my gauntlets dirty."+_

 _-"And what is it exactly are you implying, Akitor!?"-_

Cassian's posture stiffened and his bearing soured from joviality to outrage at the drop of a coin, as no doubt Silvanus had intended.

The young warrior having proved his worth many times over across the length and breadth of the Crusade even before ascending to their fraternity, before earning his blade.

Supremely skilled as he would've had to be, to mark himself out within a Legion many would say obsessed with the concept of personal achievement, though he wasn't without his own share of faults in the offing.

The arrogance of one who knew himself superior to most he met. A soul quick to bite at the failings of others with nagging barbs and self-aggrandized posturing.

Though like many of his Chemosian kin drawn into and uplifted to the Legion's vaunted ranks, his pride proved resolutely unable to stomach such jabs in return. The face of his composure fracturing under every insinuation, with every imagined slight further stoking his youthful temper with fresh coals.

 _-"You would taunt my efforts!? My tally of the slain was highest among all of us this day, last I counted! Even more so than the Prefector!"-_

"And a potent feat worthy of our ranks it is, Cassian. For which you should be most proud." Fulvio cut in swiftly before the pair of them fell into a feud that might later embarrass them before their Mortal peers after having proved dominance and intent. Ignoring his own mounting annoyance at the jibing boast, or trying to at least... "So proud in fact, I daresay you should be the first to regale our success in defending the hamlet and dissuading the local Fauna from making further attempt any time soon. Let our Cousins in the XIIth chew on that as they stew, awaiting their turn."

-" _Hmph_... _With pleasure sir!"-_

Cassian clapped a fist to his breastplate in traditional salute, turning on his heels and marching back towards the settlement. Those inhabitants parting like the tide to allow the armored Astartes passage, marveling as he moved among them in open-mouthed awe with some even reaching out to try and brush a fingertip across his plate.

His Brother paying as much attention to the display as Lion might an insect, ignorant of their appreciation.

 _+"You spoil him too much."+_ Said Silvanus dryly over a private link as soon as the younger Blade had vacated the squad-wide channel. _+"If the boy's head gets any bigger, I doubt it will at all fit inside his helm."+_

"Mayhaps, though a few minutes spent conversing with Angron's hounds should disabuse him of bragging overmuch."

Somehow he doubted the young Legionary would consider his experience with much in the way of 'pleasure' afterward. Those artless berserkers among the World Eaters hardly making for great conversationalists, even less so with their butcher's axes dulled from lack of use. And when the Word Bearers got to talking...

"Though I dare say our young firebrand raises a fair point, old friend. Do have a care with your words, Brother, I might just have a mind to get offended."

A comment said in jest, the words still carried with them enough carefully veiled condemnation to garner note.

The older Palatine ceasing the idle inspection of his own sword, raising verdant focusing lenses towards his Commander's genial profile and noting the finger tapping at Aquila emblazoned across his flawless chest piece.

Fulvio backlit by the rays of Two-Zero-Three Eight's primary star piercing the canopy of overhanging branches, gleaming off the surface of his Mark IV Power Armour. Ceramite dyed the amethyst purple of the Legion bordered by delineated traceries of platinum and gold gilding. Replete with an ornamental plume of vibrant crimson horsehair denoting rank fluttering atop his helmet stirred along by a thin zephyr.

At that moment every inch the flawless Child of the Emperor, Fulvio stood in stark contrast to his fellow Blades in that his Wargear had remained miraculously untouched by anything more substantial than a light sprinkling of dirt across his greaves. Untouched by pincer, claw, or tooth despite standing at the forefront and engaged with the harshest of the foe.

Despite this, only ever did the blood of his opponents tend to find itself upon his wargear. And even then only rarely, as it was often claimed amongst those he traveled with and fought alongside because Gervasius himself allowed it.

A feat for which the Prefector had grown somewhat infamous, even once gaining the Phonecian's personal compliment nearly four years passed. A fact in which the Prefector derived a fair bit of pride...or at least he felt he should, deriving only frustration.

One could always improve, his fight with the Deathstalker a perfect example. If he'd only progressed through his forms with greater haste, risked more in his avoidance of the beast's pincers he might have... ** _NO_**!

No, caution wasn't something to be derided carelessly, but if he had only been bolder could he not have claimed the kill more readily and outshone...!?

Fulvio tensed, grip tightening around the shaft of the spear. Plasteel and rubberized sheathing protesting meekly under gene-forged strength...a flicker of intense searing pain as an incisor bit into the inner lining of his cheek with an acidic tang...

A disgrace to his Legionary pride, it was only a matter of time before others took note and called him out for the bumbling fraud he...!?

 _+"I mean nothing by it, Prefector."+_

His ally lowered his head in deference to his leader, eyes taking stock of the increased tension as he so often did and moving to support.

 _+"You, Sir, are someone to be held to a differing standard than the rest of us._ _An example for those of the Legion's future and a true Son of the Phonecian, nothing less. An example to us Terrans at any rate."_

 _'...Remarkable, that he has the gall to worry for Cassian growing overly bold. Even with such compliments fresh on his lips?...'_

 _"_ We are all of us Children of the Emperor, Brother. Terran and Chemosian, both and more besides." He said with a tenebrous edge to his voice, relaxing the grip on his weapon before he caused it further distress. Already contemplating the penance he would pay to appease the spear's abused spirit. "Each new Astartes bolsters the Legion as we rise from the ashes, just as every new planet and culture brings something with it to strengthen the Imperium. Even this world might just harbor a soul who might one day propel us further towards further heights of perfection."

Unbidden his attention drifted towards Misshū, taking in the faces of the sight of those mortals that still drew breath through their actions. Blink clicking archival picts to include in his report to the 203rd Expedition's Command Staff, such images also likely to prove useful to the cadre of Iterators already on the ground. Each eager to spread the word of the Imperial Truth to the progressive of this new fiefdom.

More than that, Fulvio took particular note of the way these Mortals observed him. Focusing particularly on one boy with scraggly blonde hair who'd pushed his way past the protective arms of what was clearly a trio of older female siblings going by loose hereditary resemblance, it always proved difficult to tell with mainstream humanity as the years passed. Blue eyes looking on wide and admiring as he took in the sight of the Astartes standing victorious over the monsters that had laid claim to his world.

 _+" **Hmph** , you can't truly believe this world's rabble capable of standing amongst our number, do you?"+_ Following his gaze, Silvanus bristled. _+"The Atlesians may produce a halfway serviceable Regiment for the Imperial Army given time certainly, but as potential Sons of the Phoenician... **feh**?"+_

True, the boy was indeed small, nigh on pitifully so. Unhardened as so many of his people were by a world which should have tested him at every turn. Grown lax, but still capable of admiring perfection when he saw it...

 _+"They are imperfect beings."+_

"Were we not all as such at one time or another?"

Fulvio motioned for his squadmate to attend as he strode down the hill, pausing for a few seconds more as another gust of wind swept past carrying a hailstorm of cherry blossoms into the air cascading in whorling arcs to litter a pock-marked battlefield.

"Endeavor to keep an open mind, Brother. For all we know, this world still carries hidden treasures yet still to be discovered."

* * *

 **-II-**

 **(IIIrd Legioniones Astartes Battle Barge " _Exacting In Grace",_ 004.M31 Approx. - Upper Crew Decks - Remembrancer Residentia)**

Jaune Arc marched along a wide access corridor fashioned with coruscating walls of exquisitely fabricated plasteel and sculpted quartz, mindful of the variously assorted artworks that he passed by along the way. Each the latest masterpiece brought to creation by the hands of one of the master craftsmen and women that made up the vessel's Remembrancer contingent.

 _Exacting In Grace_ similar in that manner to just about every other IIIrd legion craft he'd journeyed upon since leaving Remnant a decade before, and he'd been on quite a few. Such displays openly celebrated, designed to pay homage, gain the appreciation of, and offer enjoyment to the mighty heroes of the Imperium deigning walk these halls.

Those same warriors he himself served personally with pride, enjoying the same enchanting sights as they that he might never have been able to enjoy otherwise if not for one silly family vacation to Anima. Warriors he might if things had been different, but for a twist of bad fortune, fought alongside as one of their own...

 _...'Stop that, stop that right now!'..._

He shook out his blonde head fiercely, carefully smoothing out the creases in his purple and white tabard before continuing forward at a fresh stride.

Lord Fulvio would've been expecting him to report in on the status of his arms and wargear over an hour ago...an hour spent in the onboard forges hassling the Adepts and throwing what little weight he possessed around until someone listened, just like he'd been taught to.

Of course, by that point, he'd managed to attract the attention of all things a Remnant-born bubbly maintenance adepta by name of Nora Valkyrie who -through a combination of tenacity and excitability- managed to press his order through and get it processed in good order. In hours rather than days...

Still, even with the friendly aid, he'd need to get moving, not spend time dwelling. The Legion Serf distracting his straying thoughts as he so often did with the sights around him.

Vivid illustrations of such captivating magnificence and color that it invigorated his senses that he had to will himself not to pause and take them in one by one. Landscapes, character pieces, abstract, surrealism, all of them arrayed in a precise arrangement that both worked to complement the individual style of the painting and make sure that each step never grew dulled the experience with petty issues such as repetition.

Lurid examples of poetry and written word, meticulously embossed upon plaques and tablets in fine flowing script. Ballads of this particular vessel's deeds throughout the Great Crusade and in service to the Emperor, the names of Legion Champions that had sailed to war within its confines. Strange that even in his haste he was still able to pick out the majority of the verse...and it was remarkable.

Sculpture predominantly depicting warriors of the Emperor's Children in various facets, many armed and armoured as mighty battle kings ready to confront disturbingly rendered likenesses of enemies both Xenos and Human alike. Other rarer examples showing the Legionary at rest, detailed muscles captured in a profile that some might have found egotistical or grossly exaggerated by the hands of lesser artists.

And of course, there were those other pieces he couldn't help but notice. Some seemingly tucked in the alcoves as though in shame or embarrassment at their contents, and not without cause either.

He couldn't claim any great artistic acumen, but even a failure like him was able to tell that some of these works, be they images hung along the walls, some of the esoteric shapes carved in marble and stone, or a random assortment of words, were downright obscene to any with a sense of decency. But hung they did, by order of the Ship's Captain no less.

Regardless, the one he focused on now was thankfully _not_ one of these strange abominable caricatures that were slowly but surely becoming a distressing trend, or even of any Legionary or show of honor. Clearly taken from other more human inspirations...with clearly more human motivations behind its design. Motivations that left him well and truly blushing, unable to help himself from stumbling across the padded decking like a fool just as he had since he'd first laid eyes upon it.

Standing alone in pride of place, a statue cast in precious marble of peerless quality apparently sourced from far distant Remnant itself, from the deep-set mineral quarries of Northern Mantle to be precise.

Carved in the likeness of a young woman easing back in gentle repose upon a fine plinth fit for a queen, finely detailed features perfectly capturing the intended subject from the slope of her cheekbones and the barest discernable hints of a crooked scar running vertically down her left eye and face, hair collected in an offset tail that fell in a wave down her front...her rather exposed front.

 _'Oh, that just...Now that just isn't fair, but...!'_

To be kind to the artist, it was an unmistakable likeness, if for a few inconsistencies in execution...

For one, Weiss Schnee, Heiress of the vaunted Schnee Dynasty of Atlas, renowned vocalist and a young if an already respected member of the Remembrancer Order, would never have been caught dead posing in such a...suggestive manner as this, certainly not bared as she was here.

At least he didn't think she'd be interested, especially given her erm... _explosive_ reaction when he'd accidentally walked in on her changing in a singularly embarrassing instance that had solidified their first meeting and set the tone for each one since.

He'd only been delivering a message, he hadn't meant to... he wouldn't have dared...no matter.

And then there was that smile, coquettish and playful. She didn't smile like that from what he'd come to know, hardly ever smiling at all really and it was quite clear the Artist had needed to improvise.

Even so, it _was_ a fine likeness...

"You must know she can't stand even the sight that thing, don't yo... _ah!"_ A voice called out in alarm as the Serf yelped and staggered backward, intent on futilely trying to appear as though he hadn't been ogling the statue.

So intent in fact, that reflexes honed by training inflicted what seemed like a lifetime ago weren't quite able to save him from tripping over his own feet. Though at least he'd learned how to take a fall properly, managing to land with as much dignity as could be expected, which didn't feel like much.

"Ooh Jaune, I'm sorry!?"

Cursing his own inattention underneath his breath, Jaune raised his head to see a gloved hand offered before him, eyes trailing up along spotlessly polished boots, towards the freshly pressed stark white Regimental dress uniform complete with silvery grey accents including a crimson sash wrapped about her waist.

The familiar custom staff of Atlas that he still remembered to this day embraced in the claws of the Imperial Aquila. A smaller more personalized emblem set in a brass insert on the shoulder marking her out as an officer. Her rank allowing for more personal expression, as was the way of Remnant, holdovers from the last age. From before the Imperium.

"I didn't mean to startle...ooh that looked painful, are you...?" Vividly green eyes examined him curiously with a concerned and apologetic gleam, gleaming scarlet hair done up into a tight bun beneath a peaked cap.

"Pyr...uh, * _ahem_ * Corporal Nikos? What a...um?" Sighing fitfully, he gave up on the reserved act and accepted the hand gratefully, allowing himself to be yanked up to his feet. Surprised as ever at just how effortless the young auxiliary made the action seem. "I'm alright, Pyrrha, my mistake. Should've been paying more attention." He replied, allowing for a small reassuring smile and trying not to think of what his Lord's reaction would've been in the face of such a lapse.

Thankfully of anyone he'd met on this Ship, perhaps of anyone he'd met since leaving Remnant's surface behind, he felt he could rely on Pyrrha Nikos to be discreet about such things.

Honorable, dependable, and by all accounts, a talented soldier as any the Imperial Army had seen. The two of them having first crossed paths months before during a gala held in celebration of the Expedition's success in a recent large scale compliance action.

A potent victory for both the Imperial Army Auxillia of the _392_ nd Expeditionary Fleet as well as the IIIrd Legion detachments assigned to the feat, though in rare form these festivities were more so for the former.

Word going around that a common mortal soldier of the Atlesian Knights had distinguished themselves with high honors outstanding. Singlehandedly achieving an objective that had secured the lives of several dozen of her comrades pinned under enemy fire not to mention a wounded Legionary who had been caught up in the ambush with them and was now instead grumbling in the Apothecarion.

Though of course, Jaune knew from long years experience, that was simply Silvanus Akitor's way. Smarting and spitting at anything and everything that moved while he could not.

Given he was Remnant-born himself just like this acclaimed hero, he'd been singularly thrilled at the prospect of meeting this brave soul.

Perhaps maybe show off some dance moves as he used to with his sisters, only to be shifted to the periphery at the last moment by some issue with the catering manifests. Hours spent jogging back and forth across the grand atrium, securing refreshments and trying to tread on as few toes as possible such as his Lord's fellow Astartes, or Colonel Caroline Cordovin of the Remnant's own Atlesian Knights...he'd needed a break.

So it was he wound up tucked away in a gloomy service corridor, chewing on a few scavenged sweetmeats when one of the younger Knights stumbled across him, similarly overwhelmed herself and actually laughing at his silly jokes, introducing herself as one Pyrrha Nikos. The two of them had immediately hit it off, and a few spare minutes had suddenly become hours talking of far distant Remnant among other things.

Jaune's own memories of his homeworld sparse and the girl oddly reluctant to share many details about herself though Jaune could've hardly noticed at the time.

Funny how it took him nearly a full week and a few stray words from his Lord Fulvio to realize that the entire event had been thrown largely in her honor. Funnier still the look on the Astartes' usually stoic countenance when Jaune mentioned his connection to the belle of the ball.

"You were saying something?"

"This statue, Lady Schnee has apparently been in something of a temper since it was first unveiled. With fair reason, of course. Seems it was done without permission in some grandiose attempt to court her." Pyrrha said, sounding relieved though her face still betrayed a slight furrow at the attention her friend spared the comment. "Apparently Armsmen have already been called to escort the Heiress from the vicinity of the artist's quarters several times. Heard it from some of my Squad who caught a glimpse in passing. It's certainly...flattering."

"Right. It's very...well done, the artist did a fine job capturing her...sort of." His voice trailing off, considering... "It's not perfect."

The redheaded knight glanced back to the statue, politely averting her eyes out of modesty. "Yes. Rumor has it the sculptor seems to have taken a few liberties. Certain ' _exaggerations'_ made." Given what she was avoiding it was easy enough to tell what she meant, Jaune lamenting his lack of the same self-discipline his masters employed so naturally. _"_ N-Not that I take much stock in those sorts of things, mind. I-I don't, it's just...how are you, Jaune?"

"Oh me, I'm fine, just fine!" Abrupt as the question took him, Jaune was thankful. Raring to leap at the proffered opportunity to skirt away from the awkward subject of this particular representation. "Better than fine, even! Was just heading back to report to Lord Fulvio, actually."

And he was fine, much to his relief. His earlier bout of melancholy forgotten with his friend's arrival and the memory of his various duties.

"You know how it is with us equerries, _haha_!" He struck a grandiose pose that would have done one of these artworks justice. Delighting in having drawn a light chuckle, breaking that silent tension with a hearty grin. "Never a dull moment! Though I suppose you lot in the Auxillia probably must be pretty busy too. Right? What with news from the Warmaster arriving, or so I heard."

Overheard actually while accompanying his Lord to the practice cages, elbow deep in the varied scented unguents and oils needed to properly clean and maintain the weapons worthy of the Palatine Blades. Now caught up amidst the Astropaths and the upper echelons of the Expedition, slowly but surely trickling its way around the fleet proper.

The Astartes of the Squad expressing irritation at the slow pace of dissemination, eager to know what news might have come regarding the future of the Crusade and the orders of Horus Lupercal.

Why by their reckoning, even the Imperial Army seemed to know more than they themselves did. A slight if ever there was one in their minds, made no less bitter by the Brother-Captain of the Expedition's IIIrd Legion detachment's own reclusiveness in the matter ...

From the way Pyrrha was fidgeting uncomfortably, however, that earlier unease returned twice over, maybe it would've been more prudent to keep his mouth shut and listen to the rumors.

"Yes, that is...well...yes." For the first time since she's appeared, Jaune spotted the data-slate clutched under her free arm in white-knuckled fingers. "Actually, I was just attempting to try and track down the Lord Gervasius to inform of the contents. Colonel Cordovin believed me to be the best suited for the role. Though in truth I'm not quite certain what she meant by that."

To offer an apology, probably.

Internecine politics demanded a hero the Astartes respected or at the very least acknowledged be sent to earn back their good graces, trying to appeal to their vanity. That much Jaune had been taught or had picked up in his time, though he'd never approved of it. He was a man of a mind with his Legion, the pursuit of Perfection in all things and the fulfillment of the Emperor's grand designs.

In the face of such goals, nothing else truly mattered...at least nothing else used to. Times were always a changing...had his Father told him that? Or his Mother? Maybe his sister, Saphron...?

"I can't even seem to find him. He wasn't in his apartments nor at practice, I even tried to ask Lord Cassian for aid, but he..." Had likely brushed her off no doubt, the Legionary famously despondent to the needs of the Mortals trundling at his heels. "I just thought if anyone else would know..."

"Well, you're in luck."

He managed to work his expression into the usual happy go lucky swagger that he never truly realized swayed not a one, at least not until the young woman standing tall before him now, finding herself strangely comforted by the display.

"My Lord is currently in the middle of an audience with one of his 'Exemplars'." He winced somewhat at the title, aggrandizing as it was. "One of his favorites, though I don't think he'd mind much. Especially if you've got business." He thought to himself for a moment, considering... "Yes, it should be just fine. No problem at all."

"Oh, what a relief!" The soldier groaned, closing her eyes and kneading her brow looking rather...tired. Jaune had to wonder at just what the contents of the missive could be if it had the Imperial Army units so consumed. That entire fiasco down in the foundries the result of Army official's demanding more and more, pushing the scrambling menials for all they were worth in preparation.

Freshly fabricated sets of ill-fitting body armor, newly stamped lasguns by the score, grenades and heavy ordinance aplenty. Whatever this new conflict was it had to be a massive undertaking, truly massive indeed.

"And who is your Lord meeting with, if I might ask?" Pyrrha asked all of a sudden, curious and eager. That particular thrill falling as she followed his gaze back to the nude statue and its imperious stony gaze. "O-Oh, oh my. That's...?"

* * *

 **-III-**

"...remarkable! Simply remarkable, Mamzel Schnee!"

Weiss allowed a glimmer of delighted self-satisfaction to show in the face of the Prefector's compliments and polite applause accompanied by other more insignificant claps, allowing the melody of her ballad to slowly die away with its uplifting conclusion.

Exactingly painted lips betraying a confident quirk that tugged at the edges of her scar, reverberations still playing down her throat to tickle at the high collar of her dress and bring a full measured breath of filtered air to calm the fires searing in her breast. Inert thumb-sized ice Dust crystals of startling purity sewn along the neckline jangling silently, blessedly cool to the touch.

Meager costs to pay for such a performance, well worth the pains she would endure later in solitude. It had been almost perfect...

The acoustics inherent in the architecture of the cramped if elegantly lavish stateroom's she occupied capturing those last few lingering decibels and drawing them out for those final desperate heartbeats before finally fading as they must into the nigh-constant background thrumming of the mighty Grace _'s_ engines.

Only at that point, when those barest traces were no longer audible to her subtly augmented senses, had she slowly opened her eyes with all the expected grace and dignity her station demanded to take in the full breadth of her exalted patron as he praised her efforts. Named her as one he admired for her talents, one of his 'Exemplars' acting along their own path to personal perfection.

"My deepest gratitude, Prefector Gervasius. It was a pleasure to debut." She dipped into a curtsy practiced for hours before a mirror, only this time executed before a veritable transhuman giant and while light-headed to boot. "A new solo ballad I've been developing, inspired by the compliance action carried out upon Ninety-Eleven. Namely, your own Squad's exploits, inspired by the recollections you shared with me during our third audience together."

"Ah, ' _The Battle of Calephas Ridge',_ my first blooding as Prefector," Fulvio commented in a voice like a honeyed balm, delicate but one she could well imagine rising to shout commands to his warriors in the heat of battle. "Also my first battle fought alongside the Phoenician himself, as no doubt you meant in your reference to the _'Firebird's Flames falling from on high'_ in the sixth verse, if I'm not mistaken?"

"Very astute, Lord." Another bow, this time with a hand brought to her lips to smother the excited squeal and calm the blush at her cheeks. "As always, your attention to such detail surprises and delights."

"As does your rendition of such a glorious day indeed."

Dressed in a silver trimmed violet chiton emblazoned with the palatine symbol of his Legion, Fulvio Gervasius cut a striking figure. Quite at odds with the horror stories bandied about by her peers among the Remembrancers during their frequent soirees.

All of whom would agree that the Astartes were well beyond normal men, of course. It was what made them such splendid subjects for the arts.

Sculptors reveled in the challenge of capturing mighty physiques molded by the Emperor's own scientific genius, artists endeavoring to capture the splendor of their mighty war gears, and all the while poets and musicians rallied to find words fit to describe miraculous achievements for the species.

But in the end, they were still bred for a singular purpose for which she knew all too well. At least in the case of most of them, the bloody butchers of the XIIth her prime example.

Though where she remembered vividly blunted features ruined by scarring and strange mad-eyed ticks, her Patron bore the lean flawless patrician features common among the Emperor's Children replete with inquisitive irises shining a deep brown almost black in the soft light of sculpted lumen globes. Though thoroughly unlike his brothers, a feature by which set him apart and brought him easy recognition, this Astartes bore a head of brilliantly scarlet hair the color of fine wine drawn back into an intricate collection of plaits in a supposedly Terran style.

And where the sons of Angron had always grunted and shifted as though the very thought of sitting still was anathema, the son of Fulgrim was content to lounge back into a velvet cushioned couch of a size and build suitable to accommodate the Prefector's densely muscled physique.

One she'd had prepared and brought to her apartments for this express purpose. The effort requiring the use of her vacant-eyed masked visage of her personal hulking servitor 'Klein'.

A horrid thing forced upon her by her father and named for her old Manservant in a fit of homesickness. Resembling thankfully more machine in his sculpted silver chassis than the rotting carcasses she usually witnessed. Now emerging from the antechamber bringing forth a tray clutched gingerly in metallic Dust embedded digits laden with a fluted carafe of freshly chilled and exquisitely aged Amasec alongside two glasses. One sized appropriately for her guest's spade-like hand which he accepted graciously.

Watching him move to pluck the glass up between two fingers, instinctively confident with ever motion perfectly attenuated so as not to shatter the delicate vessel. However, she had known of Gervasius for some time, having witnessed him in quite a different setting and seen those reflexes put to work. Standing in defense of the then General Ironwood against White Fang extremist monsters in the shape of Faunus...

Even then as a child, lying cut and bleeding on a tiled ballroom floor she'd been in awe of him...poetry in motion...perfection in nigh on every sense of the...

"Jaune, Corporal Nikos, would the two of you care for refreshment as well?"

And like that, all attention in the room shifted to the only other occupants in the room. Having snuck in during the heights of her impromptu performance, Weiss too caught up in herself to bring an end to it and risk disappointing such an important personage as the leader of the 392nd Expeditionary Fleet's lone Squad of vaunted Palatine Blades.

Thankfully, they'd been too stunned by her song to interrupt or cause disruption. The Astartes' oaf of an Equerry staring at her dumbstruck just like all the others, likely having seen that ridiculously insulting statue in the halls. Meanwhile, his companion idly wiped tears from her eyes at the rendition, at least showing the intended reaction.

Now that they'd been called out, the pair stammering for a moment before accepting, looking at one another grinning like fools as she flushed with hidden indignance, downing her own measure in a handful of gulps.

 _'...That's Pyrrha Nikos? Why is she...!?...'_

"So, Mamzel, I stumbled across an interesting piece of gossip as of late." The Astartes toasted as if he'd ever stumbled in his life, which she sincerely doubted. Ignorant of the momentary dip darkening her otherwise constant stoic demeanor, though of course the dolt caught wind of it and frowned at the slip. "Word from distant Remnant has it that your brother has been selected to undergo IIIrd Legion Initiation Trials. You must surely be quite proud, his name?"

"Whitley, his name is Whitley."

A young boy she barely remembered but for that he always stayed glued to Father's shadow, emulating him as best he could. Small, frail, certainly not the kind of person anyone would've expected to be taken by...no, 'chosen' he was 'chosen', but then why did it feel so... and how had Father allowed...of course. None denied the Legions, none denied the needs of Imperium.

"And yes, I've heard. It was...something of a surprise, to be sure." She'd drunken herself into a stupor fit to match her mother when she'd heard. The reason for which she'd rather not dwell upon, though it seemed she'd have no choice in this matter.

"I'm sure..." His Equerry, Arc, blurted distastefully. Wringing his hands together through the folds of his tabard like a child in the face of his Lord's exasperated glare and her own defensive scowl. His expression...hmm? "I'm sure he'll do well."

"Indeed, Whitley Schnee," Fulvio repeated the name thoughtfully and taking advantage of the hope, sampling it on his tongue like the liquid in his decanter. "The eldest sister a prominent young Officer among the 1st Remnant of the Imperial Army in defense of Mankind's demesne, the other a Remembrancer documenting the progress of the Emperor's Great work for future generations, and a brother raised to the Legions and given the chance to write that future by the edge of his blade. Truly, your line is one given to service, Weiss. A credit to the Imperium, to sacrifice so much for the species."

"It would be more comforting to know he's safe, Lord Gervasius." She said, surprised at her own bitterness over the subject. The root of it infecting what should've been a victory, to hear one of her idols say her name with such favor. "We...We didn't have the best relationship, though I've often heard how...how brutal the process can be on those who attempt them."

"As they must, for we dare not sacrifice precious resources and effort upon those unworthy of it."

There it was again, that look on Jaune Arc's face as his Lord spoke. A longing and pain both, but whyever would he...oh, oh of course. How could she not have seen it before? One of those rare mortals serving among the Emperor's Children, and in such a role...

"You, 'Arc' was it?" He nodded, biting his lip before turning the motion into an awkward bow and a smile she wiped from his face with her next utterance. "You were a Neophyte yes, selected as well? After the Compliance of Remnant?"

"Taken by the legion in Mistral, my Lady. During the initial screenings in the wake of the subjugation of those Southern Kingdoms." He said with a bow that was just a touch too low and a fair bit too fast. "Though I'm not from there, I was...uh..." Genuine confusion stopped him, a hand rising to knead at his temples. "Sorry...I mean apologies, it's been so long since I left. My memory's just a bit hazy."

"Not so hazy, I would hope." His Master chided, the boy lowering his head at the admonishment. "If you'd prefer, Mamzel, I can spare him for a time so that he might describe the trials in greater detail. Share his own experiences." Jaune shifted, face brightening by a fraction until he took note of the Heiress' own tumultuous pretense. "Perhaps knowledge might put your mind at ease, to hear of our standards from one who has seen them firsthand? A rare privilege."

"My Lord, I'm not sure if that's...?" Again that piteous look in those big blue eyes, the very sight of it stoking her temper and shaking her control in a heat of passionate irritation.

"That won't be necessary, I doubt I would learn over much." She scoffed, raising her chin and lightly falling into the plush white cushions of her own high-backed seat. "* _Huff*_...Seeing as they were standards it appears he clearly failed to meet, given his present circumstances among us."

"By no fault of character or effort, I assure you." Fulvio cut back sharply, this time without mirth. The Heiress abruptly curving her temper as she pursed her lips tight realizing her error, an edge of panic threatening shooting down her spine. Sinking into the seat now out of alarm rather than misplaced contempt. "Jaune did struggle, yes. As is far from uncommon given the sort of necessary rigors we must inflict, though despite expectations set against him he did his utmost to meet what was expected. Even going beyond and excelling in some respects. Another one of my 'Exemplars'."

"T-Then why is he not...!?" Weiss was ashamed to admit she'd almost quite forgotten the Corporal's presence in the heat of the moment, wincing as curiosity spurred the young woman foolishly from her quiet corner of the apartment.

So indignant only to falter upon encountering the natural presence the Palatine Blade naturally emitted, especially irked at being interrupted as he was and by the Heiress' statement.

Clearly, her station as an officer not quite preventing her from sharing in the natural unease most baseline humans suffered upon interaction with members of the Legiones Astartes.

"I..., pardon me, Prefector." Those proud Mistrali features reddening to match her hair, standing to attention with her head bowed, curiously not looking towards the failed Aspirant as she did so. "You needn't answer, of course. I shouldn't have...?"

"Pyrrha, I'd rather not..." The blonde tried to speak only to be overridden by his Master, shoulders slumping. And she pitied him then in that instant.

Knowing perhaps already that it was futile, the Legiones Astartes adept at many things, war chief among them, though many were their other interests especially amongst those of the Emperor's Children. Art, science, philosophy...though despite this, empathy for Mortal's feelings and concerns was rare among them.

Stripped along with their base humanity, perhaps the one flaw they truly had.

If Fulvio had understood, perhaps he might have spared his mortal serf the discomfort, as it was...

"No, it is understandable you would be curious, Corporal. My Equerry speaks most highly of you, and it is only appropriate for one to worry for those who share their confidence." Pyrrha was quick to salute, side-eyeing the young man beside her with nervous interest. "Jaune's was a failure already written, unfortunately. An underlying imperfection in his genetic compatibility as I understand it. A fault the Apothecaries missed during the initial selection processes, frankly an almost unforgivable lapse in oversight for which they were censured severely."

"So, he failed before even truly beginning?" Weiss bit her lip, embarrassment and a hint of remorse threatening to show through the facade.

Moral impulses she strictly controlled, lest she appears in the wrong. And if her Father had taught her anything before her escape into the stars of a wider galaxy, it was that it was one thing to be thought of as insensitive, and another entirely to be considered mistaken. A matter of pride.

"How...How unfortunate." She added blithely, the young man's face as though he were swallowing something sour, fists curled at his sides, jaw tensed.

"Indeed it is, yet such is merely certainty and natural limitation revealed." Her eyebrows rose as did the Corporal's, both women looking to the Legionary for clarification. "Painful as it might be is to accept. Regardless of will, effort, or trial, tis a difficult truth that some are simply never meant to achieve the heights that we who are raised to the Legions take for granted."

The arrogance of the Prefector's statement should have shocked them, yet proved completely underwritten by the speaker's cold unwavering belief in its correctness. Fulvio Gervasius wasn't boasting, nor was he insulting the boy now trying his best to look as though he were unaffected, drinking his own glass in slurping gulps.

Her Patron, her Muse, was merely stating facts as he saw them.

"A man might study and work as to achieve higher station, yet he will almost never reach the pedestal of greatness achieved by the truly talented, the naturally gifted. Jaune could well learn to sing, for example. He could possess the finest tutors and training, but I sincerely doubt he would likely never approach let alone match your own milestones in the art."

The red-haired giant swept a broad hand that encompassed every mortal in the room, Weiss included. Face lit up with a fervor she couldn't quite say she'd ever seen before, if but for flashes in his florid descriptions of battles and the like during their sessions.

"And yet even in the face of such, his drive to serve among the Legions and make something of the sacrifices he has made grants him another path. One upon which he might find and strive to achieve his own state of 'perfection', in spite of that which limits him so."

"I-I don't...?" The Songstress stammered weakly, suddenly feeling rather short of breath, "But you said it yourself, he cannot be a Legionary, can he?"

"No, he cannot. Yet the pursuit of perfection lies in more than merely the purely martial disciplines, Madam Schnee. Such also encompasses fine arts, literature, works of music and composition. Things meant to be enjoyed and admired that will persist throughout the ages and give a representation of those who gave them life."

He bowed his head to her in stark acknowledgment, those hard eyes meeting her own and capturing them acutely. Her heart skipping a beat as she felt the full weight of the being crafted by the finest mind, and supposedly even he was a pale shadow in the face of his Primarch and the Emperor. To be able to share the galaxy with such individuals...

"And beyond the physical expression lies matters of temperament and motivation, the driving force of will to change and improve oneself in spite of those limits. A very... _human_ concept." He said pensively, turning to look to each of them in turn. Weiss bristling childishly at having to share the limelight, as much as his distraction brought momentary relief to her frayed nerves. "Jaune's wish to serve and aid the Legion he admires, Corporal Nikos' righteous desire to improve herself to better aid her comrades, your own aspirations to separate yourself from your family's legacy and walk your own path. These struggles fascinate and inspire me, I find."

Was that...doubt she saw then in the Prefector's bearing? Surely not, a Space Marine didn't feel doubt, the emotion purged from them entirely along with their fears or so the stories always claimed. Fiercely loyal to the Emperor and the Imperium, such weaknesses beneath them.

Of course, she'd likely just mistaken such feelings. Unused to reading the attitudes of Legionaries as she was, that had to be it.

Jaune and Pyrrha sharing their own flushed smiles, brimming from the weight of the compliment, and why wouldn't they. Even she found it difficult to resist the urge to cheer her own good fortune. To be so highly regarded by a figure such as a Palatine Prefector would be monumental.

The renown and prestige it might bring even despite the recent controversies spreading through the Remembrancer Orders...talk of disillusionment and disdain from their Astartes subjects. Talk and rumor was all it was, just mindless drivel of course...the Phonecian himself had spoken highly of their efforts, the perfect muse.

The Palatine Blade straightened his posture and regarding the Mistrali hero in their midst as she contemplated these dispelling doubts, face set. If she didn't know any better she'd say he was biting his own cheek. "Now then, onto business. Corporal. I believe you carried with you a message."

"My Lord?"

"That data-slate you're clutching ever so tightly." Fulvio waved a steady finger towards the item in question, suddenly now drawn to the chest of the nervous mortal Auxilia, "Entertaining as this discussion had been, I trust it concerns information I have been trying and failing to ascertain for more than a terran week now. Much to my consternation, I might add. I'd have it heard."

"Colonel Cordovin was rather insistent it is meant for your ears...?" The Knight tried and failed to continue on with the objection, though to her credit didn't break from his gaze.

" _Now_ , if you would, Corporal." He said again, this time with emphasis and a hint of consternation.

It wasn't a request, certainly not. Not when it came from one of the Emperor's chosen. Not from the likes of Fulvio Gervasius.

"W-Well, Prefector, the Warmaster's missive concerns..." Pyrrha paused, taking a moment to breathe and collect herself, returning to the task with the confidence expected of a war hero. "The Warmaster is requesting the immediate re-routing of the 392nd Expeditionary Fleet and all its military and strategic assets to the specified stellar coordinates. From what the fleet Astropaths have discerned in their scrying, the call has been sent out across the length and breadth of the Imperium in response to..." Her brow crinkled, the disgust evident in her voice with her next few words, "...to treason most foul, against both Emperor and Imperium. Already the _Spirit of Vengeance_ and _Endurance_ make swift passage through the Empyrean's tides, the _Conqueror_ not far behind alongside elements of the 28th Expedition and others."

The Heiress blanched as did Jaune at those names, those legendary Gloriana class vessels that acted as the Flagships of entire Space Marine Legions. One could have devastated the whole of an Expeditionary fleet, shatter a system, devastate a world.

And for three to gather in one place, for one campaign alongside the Phoenician's own forces...

"And where are we to go?" Fulvio eased himself from his seat like a king from his throne, towering easily over them all. That handsome face unreadable, stone for all the emotion it showed and just as hard. Yet his voice betrayed his own incredulity, his own anticipation at such glory... "Where has the Warmaster summoned us and the might of three other Legions?"

"The Istvaan system, Lord." Pyrrha formed the sign of the Aquilla, trepidation warring with excitement across her features. "By decree, we are to re-take the Istavaan System. For the Warmaster, and for the Emperor!"

* * *

 ** _\- Log Terminated -_**

* * *

 _ **A/N: Oof this took a good while to write, almost twice as long as the last update and covering a few more subjects this time. Namely the perspective of those taken by or currently venturing with the Emperor's Children who, understandably, have fared a bit differently than Ruby and Yang back on the**_ _ **Daggerline.**_

 _ **This is due, in large part, to Atlas and Mistral not being for all intents and purposes mauled by the World Eaters. Instead they saw where the winds were blowing and embracing the dignitaries sent by the IIIrd Legion with open arms, Atlas being the principal with Mistral falling behind given the two's relationship with one another (Plus a Kingdom mostly devoted to Arts and Culture, sign the Emperor's Children right up.) The Emperor's Children fighting skirmishes like this one, working their way up to better prey as time goes on.**_

 _ **Since then those two Kingdoms have pretty much flourished in the time since. Atlas pretty much going on to represent them as shown by their Planet's regiments being named in honor of the Drone's they're not really supposed to be using now. Pyrrha going on to join them while Weiss struck out on her own, enjoying the luxuries as she went.**_

 _ **As for Jaune, I thought about making him a Legionary but decided against it. With the amount of psycho-conditioning that goes into making a Space Marine I'd have to wonder how much of his original personality would really be left by the end of it. So, in the end, he wound up a failed Neophyte turned Squire sort've.**_

 _ **Could he have made it? Given how he is in the show, working with Pyrrha to improve his less than stellar skills and winding up semi-competent in a short amount of time, I think with enough motivation he could've done it. Just not in this story, hence defect.**_ _ **Based him really loosely as a younger less sure of himself version of Garro's mortal Housecarl Kaleb from Flight of the Eisenstein, essentially someone to perform the myriad tasks a Space Marine can't be bothered with.**_

 _ **Let me know what you guys think, always on the lookout for fresh commentary.**_


	4. Chapter 4

_**(Disclaimer: I don't claim to own RWBY or Warhammer, those strictly fall under the purview of Roosterteeth and Games Workshop. This is just a passion project.)**_

* * *

 **\- Remnants of Remnant -**

* * *

 ** _Daughter of the White Fang_**

* * *

 _ **"The difference between gods and daemons largely depends upon where one is standing at the time."**_

\- Lorgar Aurelian, Primarch of the XVIIth Legion _'Word Bearers'_

* * *

 **-I-**

 **(Imperial Designate: Two-Zero-Three Eight upon Compliance, Local Designate: "Remnant", 994.M30 Approx. - Kuo Kuana** **, Menagerie)**

 ** _+*...Aksho Kharneth Akhash!..._ _Aksho Slaaneth K'khaa!...*+_**

Chanting...above everything else, the blood curdling screams both close and far away that pulled at the heart, the crackle of the fires and crash as one of the few places she'd ever truly felt at home violently came apart around her on all sides.

Above even the howling somethings that pressed at the corners of her thoughts and just wouldn't stop, whispers and things she wished she could forget but couldn't.

The Chanting again and again drowned out all...only the Chanting repeated, always the _Chanting_...!?

* * *

...as such from the moment nightmares had startled her awake in the cozy little bed she'd always slept in during her Papa's visits with the Chieftain, this most recent summit convened to discuss the arrival of this so-called 'Imperium' no different.

Actually that wasn't true, _everything_ was different now, most people just didn't want to think of it like that. But aliens had come to Remnant aboard vast ships the likes of which never conceived by her world's greatest minds, and what's more they were _human_...

None knew what to expect...

Certainly not this, responding to the hands urgently pulling at the blankets in an effort to rouse her. Bleary amber eyes blinking away visions of snapping red smeared maws and fiery birds falling from smoking skies. And then when the cries and gunshots started to register, desperate shouts for aid against...against something horrible that was coming for them all.

So fast and so loud there hadn't been time to flee let alone understand by the time they were upon them...but she hadn't known then what that meant.

Only the chanting had made itself clear amidst the chaos, words spoken in a strange language that stung her sensitive ears just to hear.

Mama had seemed so worried hovering over her, though she'd done her best to hide the emotion behind firm words and a false smile. Shooing her daughter onto unsteady feet and into her outdoor wear. Ignoring the colorful silks she'd brought along special for the feasts and the parties, the ones that were supposed to happen after Papa's talks with the Chieftain finished, those stayed tucked away in the wardrobe untouched.

No, instead she'd had her feet shoved into a pair of thick boots and an overlarge drab jacket she'd never seen before draped over her shoulders, the White Fang's logo emblazoned across the back, one of Papa's maybe...? But in that case, then where was he now?

Why wasn't he here with them? And what were those strange voices saying...so loud but so quiet all at once?

She's tried asking but Mama had insisted she hurry along, the calm mask she'd carried jarring loose as Saber Rodentia had shouldered his way into the apartments flanked by one of his guards, stress pulling at the livid scar across his eye.

Both men drenched in sweat, faces tight from exertion. Dressed up in their combat gear though they were both sporting tears in several places, the Gerbil Faunus' stained dark with something that smelled off to her keen senses and he was limping slightly. Favoring one leg over the other with visible effort.

All this combined with perhaps the strangest and most alarming detail of all, a heavy bladed pistol clutched so tightly in both hands that it trembled in his grasp while his partner hefted a stocky looking rifle just like the one she'd seen Atlas soldiers carrying.

She'd frowned, unable to remember Mr. Rodentia ever shaking like that before that tonight. Always stern and unflappable...but the guns as well?

...Papa hated weapons, hated seeing the people close to him carrying such things especially around his daughter. So why...?

He'd gone to Mama first while his comrade went to check the windows, looking relieved but still so scared. The adults carefully keeping their voices just low enough that Blake only caught a few words here and there _..._

 _...'Claiming we attacked first and opened fire'...'Outer districts under siege, Sienna's evacuating who she can'...'Holding the approaches, desperate...'._

Nothing that made sense in the established reality of her young mind. Nothing bad could happen on Menagerie, not to the Faunus. This was their home, Papa had said...

Clearly they didn't want to frighten her, and for some reason that made the young Heiress to the White Fang mad. Especially when Mama shushed her and Mr. Rodentia shouted at her to grab her things and get ready, the same tone he'd use with his recruits but never with her. And still no answers.

Get ready for what!? What was happening!? No one would say! No one would tell her anything!

 ** _+*...Aksho Tzeeneth Phaos!..._ _Aksho Nurgleth Dh'Akh!.._** ** _.Aksho...!*+_**

Hadn't Papa taught her that it was right to ask questions if something felt wrong or you didn't understand. That's what one's supposed to do...wasn't it?

She felt sick, her stomach queasy as though all her doubts and irritations were wriggling about inside like worms wanting to get out.

Unfortunately, before Blake could open her mouth however to scream at them, or perhaps just to be sick all over the floor, the world stole away her chance. Exploding into a maelstrom of shrieking sound and concussive force so loud that her ears popped painfully and her teeth ached in her mouth, the sound glass shattering close by.

The whole mansion shivering violently for several long ticks as though caught up in a hurricane, or if a giant's fist had collided headlong with the building itself without remorse.

At some point she'd lost her balance and fallen into a curled, everything going black all of a sudden despite her night vision. For how long she couldn't readily be sure, seconds? Minutes perhaps? Only that next thing she knew she was being pulled roughly to her feet as a voice, Mama's voice, called out though from far away. But she was right there, wasn't she?

Kali Belladonna's face covered in grime and streaked dark red from a cut across her forehead that looked like it must hurt a lot, marred by desperate terror that split into a moment's relief as Blake coughed and spluttered her way into an unsteady crouch on bloodied knees.

Smoke was in the air stinging at her eyes, cloying ashes all about filling her lungs, making it hard to breathe right...

"... at me, baby! It's going to be alright! I'm here...!" Mama was speaking to her, shouting actually, trying to smile but it didn't look right at all. Her ears flat to her scalp, trying to keep her daughter's attention fixed on her. Not on the corner where the guard who'd been spying out through the window at the scene in the grounds lay half buried beneath what looked to be half the ceiling.

Staring sightless from the one eye he still had, the other simply absent along with most the rest of his...oh his...!?

Blake emptied her stomach, choking on the sour bile. Kali coaxing her gently but firmly with a hand at her back. What comfort she offered lost to the song, the chanting it seemed only she alone could hear.

Flames licking at the windows, snapping at the palms like writhing Grimm, gnarled claws reaching out. Reaching towards her...

 ** _+*...Aksho Kharneth Akhash!..._ _Aksho Slaaneth K'khaa!..._** ** _Aksho Tzeeneth Phaos!...Aksho Nugleth Dh'Akh!...Aksho Kharneth...!_** ** _*+_**

Mr. Rodentia, covered head to toe in ashen dust that turned him pale as a ghost, was saying something she couldn't make out over the ringing and the noise.

He didn't need her to understand, making instead to pull them both from the room. Snatching up his partner's rifle from where it lay discarded while offering his pistol...offering it to Mama without preamble, who took it reluctantly after a moment's hesitation. Inspecting the firearm with an ease and familiarity that shocked the young girl into silence.

There was nothing to say...

* * *

...nothing to do but run. Moving along through the winding halls as fast as the bodyguard's limp would allow. Footsteps pounding across the wooden paneling, screams filtering in both from outside and within. Punctuated every so often with rapid booming thunderclaps that echoed, bolstered by the cavernous ceilings drawing out each and every note.

Passing the outlines of shattered windows and the busts of broken jade marble pillars cast down as the building continued to shake and shudder with increasing regularity. Paneled doors painstakingly adorned with murals of Faunus history, both ancient and far more recent, were cracked and smashed aside or seared black by heat, intricately woven tapestries and banners torn and soiled if not set alight.

Worse, or better depending on one's view of the matter, they weren't alone in flight. Far from it.

Their escape joined by panic-stricken servants grabbing what valuable or friends they could alongside Faunus dressed in finery of rich make. Ambassadors and politicians who'd had come for the summit, men and women who were supposed to be their races' leaders in this unsure generation. Most of them kicking, shoving, and jostling their way forward towards the front of the Faunus river regardless of who fell behind in their wake...or simply fell. Many not getting up again in that case, shrill cries of pain abruptly cut short but for a sound similar to snapping twigs.

All while the Chieftain's House Guard ran back and forth from deeper within the manse, too caught up in the voracity of the attack to even think of enforcing order.

* * *

 _They should've tried nonetheless. How many died simply due to fear? How many?..._

* * *

Outfitted in their traditional armor and bearing an eclectic assortment of outdated weaponry from clockwork Dust rifles to intricate ceremonial spears, some looked to be as harried as Saber was. Others suffering under injuries and had to be supported by their fellows, and those might have been considered the lucky ones. Most others without that luxury simply laid out supine where they had fallen, clutching at grievous wounds or otherwise as still as the young man from the apartments had been, their eyes just as vacant...just as absent...

So many sounds, all of them more terrible than the last...

Screams of dying Faunus clutching at squelching ropes that should've remained inside, the hiss of fires and burning timber searing through marrow and fat, the noisome thunderclaps joined with lighter caliber return shots...all which merely spurred the mass exodus into a frenzied mob.

Every sound deafening, yet so distant all at once...and all the blood, the smell and the noises both in her surroundings and in her head...It was all too much, _far too much!_

Blake's legs ached from the running and a scrape on her knee she hadn't noticed before...had she? Sensitive ears making her dizzy while the world spun in colorful coronas, chest burning from the blackening smoke and oppressive heat. The plants grown along the walls coming apart in raining embers that became flurries through the corridors, spreading the inferno's kiss further and further on.

What light there was filtered in from nearby windows in dancing blooms, from the fires that must've spread from the town she thought. Wanting to check, but Mr. Rodentia had warned her to stay far away. To trust in their night vision, calling it an advantage, but against whom?

Who would be attacking the Faunus? The creatures of Grimm, the Chief of Security had mentioned monsters before...or was that the voices, it was growing harder ans hard to tell?

Had the humans come for them all at last like Auntie Sienna warned, vengeance for the Revolution despite what Papa had always said? Where was the Chieftain, and where was Ghira Belladonna!?

 _'...Where's Papa? Where's...'_

She shrieked wordlessly, a fleeing servant's elbow having clipped her shoulder knocking her roughly to the floor.

Rather then stop to help her up however, the antlered man just kept running, followed by several others in tow. He didn't care, none of them did. A stray heel coming within inches of her head almost catching an ear, a boot nearly claiming her fingers while a shin bruised her side...stealing her air.

"Blake!? Blake, I'm...!? W-What are you all...!? Back, get...!?" Kali cried out in frustration, buffeted back only to vanish into the throng. Her face twisted in terror not for herself but for her child. "Remember yourselves! We're not...we're not animals! We're not...!"

It didn't matter, her words, who her husband was or what he meant to the White Fang. Blake Belladonna certainly didn't, not to the mob in flight.

"Mama! M-Mama!" She called hoarsely in a voice choked with phlegm and grit, trying to find the familiar black and white motif of her Mother's hakama. Her vision one of a stampede like those she'd grown up seeing at the protests her parents organized, those the SDC put down with water hoses and gas. Those she remembered in her worst dreams. The fear, the hatred, the cruel looks of pride on human faces who'd once looked like everyone else...twisted and malicious...

Only instinct and that meager experience alone allowed her to roll clear before she was trampled underfoot...so small...so easy to miss...so easy to lose track of...a loud snapping _*crack*_ booming nearby, unmistakably close. A gunshot, here, but who...?

More screams, individual voices blending together as one incoherent whole...

 ** _+*...Tzeeneth Phaos!..._ _Aksho Nurgleth Dh'Akh!.._** ** _.Aksho Kharneth Akhash!..._** ** _Aksho Slaaneth K'khaa!...Aksho..._** ** _!*+_**

"Blake, Blake!? I've got you, baby!" "Mama's voice shouted hoarsely through the smoke and heat just in front of her. Suddenly there, suddenly present.

Fear, Worry, Relief, Love...Blake heard all of it and more in her Mother's voice through a splitting headache.

A hand reaching out through the haze to clutch at her flailing wrist, gripping so tight it almost hurt. The pistol clutched in the other smoking from a recent discharge, the whole of the crowd scattering to give the protective woman, her trembling daughter, and their scowling bodyguard a wide berth. Outcries of alarm and indignity thrown but none chose to stay and back up their words.

Still, the fact remained, Mama had fired a gun.

It didn't seem right...but there was room to breathe now, the hallway quickly deserted but for the fallen and the trampled. Something neither Faunus chose focus upon overlong, they couldn't afford to.

"I know it's hard, but we have to keep...Blake...!?"

A booming crash resounded, stealing what encouragement she might've had as a set of double doors just ahead of them leading to a servant's corridor was thrown open violently, disgorging a pair of disheveled maidservants accompanied by a haggard looking guardswoman with horns dressed in White Fang colors brandishing a spear at something that lay deeper within.

Their faces contorted masks of absolute terror beyond even that of the crowd earlier, those at least having had a destination, purpose if violent.

What she witnessed was something more, a primal thing that soured the air and put the young girl in mind of something not all together sentient. Mice in the presence of the cat...a comparison that came unbidden and made her spine crawl.

Enough to make her want to close her eyes and forget the faces, forget the feeling...

* * *

 _By the gods she wished she had, if only save herself from a scene that would embed itself into nightmare for years to come..._

* * *

...Mr. Rodentia had cried out in shocked recognition, though to urge them on or demand explanation Blake couldn't be certain. Too focused was she on the buzzing thrum grinding at the edges of her hearing, setting her teeth on edge.

A choking grind of metal on metal, the _*WHOOSH*_ of rushing air as the trio was consumed utterly in a tidal onrush of searing liquid flames that spilled from the opened threshold. Pouring outwards into the corridor beyond, charring everything it touched black in its insidious greedy wrath. Wood, stone, flesh...nothing was spared.

Mama tried to shield her as best she could, diving in front of her. A protective cover of Aura and distance saving both Mother and Daughter from the worst of the scalding heat, if failing to fully obscure the view of three writhing torches stumbling and flailing over one another blindly, or smother the howling shrieks torn from scalding throats.

A shrill animal uproar that chilled the blood and damaged the soul to hear. Drawn out cruelly to the popping sizzle of frying meat...like bacon in the pan or fired fish on a grill, her gorge rebelling at the unwanted similarity.

Two of the effigies mercifully falling silent within heartbeats, their strings cut as the air burned their lungs to ash and their limbs curled inwards on themselves. The third's armor sparing her just long enough to give her the time reach out for her anguished Commander.

Wordlessly pleading for a mercy the Gerbil Faunus granted with a single shot, a grief-born grimace etched into the action.

What a horrific moment to witness, even in the face of such violence and the traumas of the night thus far...

* * *

 _It would be the first instance Blake Belladonna would ever see such mercy delivered. It wouldn't be the last, though forever a rarity..._

* * *

...yet it was as nothing compared to the monster that marched from the portal of a crisping frame, mammoth footfalls staggering the seared floor beneath it. Hunched at first, fooling her into thinking it might have been some sort of simian Grimm.

If only... _that_ she could've understood. But this...

Broad shoulder pads scraped at the edges of the vestibule, crackling splinters cascading harmlessly across ridged slate grey skin the color of granite forced a dull effervescent red in the heat...wait, not skin but armour she recognized a beat later to a tremor of unbidden awe. Terrible yet beautiful in a distinctly martial fashion, minute script delicately inscribed in gold and silver tracery peeking out along it's vambraces and gorget. Strips of parchment stamped with wax fluttering in the back draft, a symbol worked out one shoulder...an opened book with a fire at its center, an emblem she instinctively disliked.

 _'Who would burn books?'_ Such a childish thought, born of one for whom books were a lifeline to worlds beyond this one. Stories of wonder, drama, and learning...

And then the buzzing sound she'd heard earlier returned, magnified a hundred fold and gnawing insidiously at her eardrums with every motion it made.

Gleaming emerald eye lenses staring out maliciously while blazing fingers seemingly reached out from the depths of conflagration to caress its stark outline, only to be buffeted back by the sheer dynamic force of its tread.

Not unlike the noble knights from the Atlesian myths she'd seen in illustrations Mama used to read to her before bed. Sallying forth bravely to slay horrid Grimm and save the beautiful damsel in distress...but this was no virtuous hero. No righteous savior at all.

This was wrath and brutality given form, carrying with it the potent weight of a heavy snub nosed device affixed to an under-slung tank that sloshed with the thick viscous liquid contained within. A pilot light flickering a brilliant blue against a sea of orange and white.

Blake Belladonna could know none of this, yet understood in that moment all she needed too as those lenses fell upon the refugees...on her specifically.

This thing meant to hurt them, this thing was responsible for all of this destruction, all of this _chaos_. One of the fetal corpses vanishing under one metal-shod boot, giving way with a _*crunching*_ sound akin to snapping branches and dry sand that curdled the child's ears.

Terror momentarily stealing her voice, Blake shuddered further into her mother's grasp seeking some attempt at comfort, her mouth opened wide to scream, but no sound would come forth. A feral animal impulse that dried her tongue and set her small heart beating so much faster than it ever had before overtaking her.

It looked like a person, but no one could be so large, could they? It wasn't possible. It had to be a machine, one of Atlas' robots, but...but no automaton she'd ever seen could move so gracefully. Nothing that size at any rate. There had to be a person in there, there had to be, but the size even still...

Her Father had always had great physical presence, towering over his brothers and sisters in the White Fang and employing it expertly in subtly cowing his political opponents...at least that was how Mr. Rodentia had tried explained it.

Compared to this creature, however, her Papa might as well have been a child like her. Where the Leader of the White Fang might fill a space, this being dominated it utterly with none of her Papa's innate warmth.

 _ **"...**_ ** _Akso'mi Kharneth..._** ** _Akso'mi Slaaneth...!"_**

Leisurely, almost with a sort of casual ease, the Knight that wasn't a Knight brought a hand from the hissing weapon and bowed its head low. Weaving an intricate sign through the air that pricked at her eyes to acknowledge. Coarse syllables in a language that no throat should've ever made purring in steaming rivulets from the grated slits in what she knew must be a helm all sloping brutish angles.

 _ **"...**_ ** _Akso'mi Tzeeneth..._** ** _Akso'mi Nurgleth...! Khaos ahkash dhar!_** ** _"_**

A trio of sharp _*cracks*_ and the giant's head snapped back in a flicker flash of sparks and active Dust detonating across its brow. What restraint of composure there had been giving way instantly to a distorted growl of irritation as Mr. Rodentia interposed himself between it and his charges. His rifle up and barrel smoking, the Faunus taking a moment to steady his aim, scarred face set and determined while courageously staring down his foe...the threat to those he protected.

Blake had never seen its like before, and she never wished to again...

"Take the Young Miss and go, my Lady!" He bellowed feathering the trigger, more impacts falling like hail against the intruder who raised a massive arm to shield its head. A low grunt that she hoped might have been of pain reverberating through the hall as Dust rounds burst and came apart in a cascade of disruptive elemental fury. Nature's wrath, biting back to tear at the juggernaut's hide.

A sign that this thing could be driven back and even defeated! That it wasn't as invulnerable as it appeared...

* * *

 _Not the first time she'd ever wished ill on another living being, having grown up seeing peaceful protests broken under a cruel oppressive heel despite her Father's hopes for peace. Good people who only wanted to be treated as equals bloodied and broken by cruel men like Jacques Schnee and all the other Humans who lorded over the Faunus like it was their right._

 _But it **was** the first time she'd ever truly meant it..._

* * *

...though in truth it was laughing, laughing at the challenge, or laughing at the futility of the gesture...

Mama stuck in place looking back at the man and shaking her head in denial. Tears streaking her face, Blake feeling them, warm and hot against her ear dripping across her forehead. Hearing the sob building in a dry throat.

" _Go, Kali_!"

Saber was afraid, she saw. But still he was choosing to stay behind, buying Mother and Daughter the barest of head starts. Selling himself for all he was worth, so that they could get away and hurting the monster responsible for the death of his friend and more besides in the process.

Even if the thought that such a small rifle could do anything against a creature such as that wasn't one Blake wanted to consider, and neither did her Mother. Kali's breath catching in her throat at the sight of their attacker straightening under the assault, coiled bundles bulging at its limbs. Rodentia spitting a guttural curse as he fumbled to reload...and then against all sane reason, laughed as the weapon clicked back to readiness.

A bitter spiteful sound, one that trailed away as Blake felt her feet leave the floor abruptly. Mama whispering something under her breath, a thank you, a goodbye...the context lost in the protector's next burst. A defiant scream hurling free from his throat, violently overshadowed by the rage-fueled bellow of his target as it moved to engage.

Its weapon's range forgotten in the need to rip and tear...so fast, closing the distance of several yards in moments with a clawed gauntlet outstretched.

Faster than Blake could have believed possible in that meager seconds long glimpse. Nothing that big should be able to move so fast...and all the while the Bodyguard screamed. Gun barrel flashing as explosions traced up the monster's chest, and still he howled his anger back at the thing coming to kill him.

Like a brave hero from one of her stories...

The young daughter of Menagerie's Chief had known Saber Rodentia for as long as she could remember and long before even that.

A comrade of Papa's since the earliest days of the White Fang, trusted above all others to safeguard the lives of his family. Professional and serious, except for when he pretended not to find her in their games of hide and seek or occasionally turned a blind eye to when she stayed up past her bedtime in the library pouring over her latest literary adventure.

A good man, and an exemplary member of the White Fang who stood his ground till the last in order to protect his Faunus kindred.

His agonized screams following the both of them as Kali fled through the trailing cinders and grasping smoke, Blake sobbing silently her arms through a curtain of ebony hair. Her guardian's howls continuing on and on, past the point anything could be expected to survive and stretching further still. Yet, when finally they did end she knew, somehow, that his suffering had not concluded with them.

Nor was her own, it seemed...

For all she tried to ignore it, to drown out the whispers in her head, the chorus in her head simply wouldn't cease...

"They're here...They've come..." The words slipped out unbidden from chapped lips, going unheard in the roar of the inferno and her Mother's frantic gasps. Haggard and heavy with loss and that desperate hope inherent and instinctive to all that breathed. But it mattered little, and deep down both Faunus knew it.

More of the Knights that weren't Knights just barely visible through the madness and the flames as she peeked over her mother's shoulder. Laughing, killing, exulting in the slaughter yet searching for something as well...something they intended to find. Something perhaps they'd already found, perhaps for no reason at all...

"They've arrived...They _are_...!"

 ** _+*...Aksho Kharneth Akhash!..._ _Aksho Slaaneth K'khaa!..._** ** _Aksho Nurgleth Dh'Akh!_** ** _..._** ** _Aksho Tzeeneth Phaos!..._** ** _*+_**

 _ **Kharneth...**_ _ **Slaaneth...**_ _ **Nurgleth...**_ _ **Tzeeneth...The Powers four...The Powers that be...The Powers that were...**_

...They were watching. They were here. And they wanted her...

* * *

 ** _\- Log Terminated -_**

* * *

 ** _A/N: Hey all, been a bit. So I've decided to split this chapter, focusing on Blake's first encounter with the Word Bearers as a child. Back when the White Fang wasn't known for terrorist actions, with Ghira at its head before becoming Chieftain._**

 ** _The next chapter hopefully catapulting us back into present events. Should have that one out much sooner given it was originally part of this one, no month long wait to figure out what our Ninja's up to._**

 ** _Tried to focus a bit on the confusion of the attack from a kids perspective, Word Bearers around this point (10ish years from Istvaan proper) are still outwardly loyal though in truth have been secretly working to build themselves up for what is to come. Maybe I'm wrong but they seemed pretty prepped with the daemons and such on Calth not to have been practicing for a good long while._**

 ** _The other two Legions on Remnant have no idea, wrapped up in their own stuff to focus on Menagerie, giving the Word Bearers a chance to cut loose a little._** _ **Actually drew a bit from First Heretic when writing the actual attack, Word Bearers assaulting the equivalent of a Governor's palace burning the thing and everyone in it to the ground. The chant taken from the Dark Tongue of Old World Warhammer Fantasy.**_

 _ **Definition:**_

"The Dark Tongue is rich in words and phrases which express the mystical, arcane and complex cosmology of Chaos. Although it is convenient to attach basic meanings to these words, they are imbued with far greater and deeper significance. Each word really encompasses a myriad of associated meanings and concepts. For this reason the Dark Tongue, in its pure and archaic form, has become the most powerful language of sorcery and ritual. Debased versions of the language have far less power to evoke the mysteries of Chaos."

Khorne shall be called with blood.  
 _Aksho Kharneth Akhash_

Slaanesh shall be called with anguish.  
 _Aksho Slaaneth K'khaa_

Tzeentch shall be called with fire.  
 _Aksho Tzeeneth Phaos_

Nurgle shall be called with death.  
 _Aksho Nurgleth Dh'Akh_

 ** _Another heads up, Faunus are NOT extinct on Remnant given how spread out they are, though Menagerie (The main concentration) itself was for the most part purged. The population was severely reduced as a result, but they're there. Some even made it offworld as Blake shows though not under the best circumstances. I've since updated the 1st chapter post note to make that a bit clearer._**

 _ **As always would appreciate hearing thoughts, and I'll work hard to have the next chapter up soon. - Mojo.**_


	5. Chapter 5

_**(Disclaimer: I don't claim to own RWBY or Warhammer, those strictly fall under the purview of Roosterteeth and Games Workshop. This is just a passion project.)**_

* * *

 **\- Remnants of Remnant -**

* * *

 ** _Slave of the XVIIth_**

* * *

 _ **"Dogma is like tough meat. It is best well-chewed."**_

-Seventy-Second Epistle, attributed to Kor Phaeron, 1st Captain of the XVIIth Legion 'Word Bearers

* * *

 **-I-**

 **-(XIIth Legiones Astartes Frigate " _Daggerline_ ", 004.M31 Approx. - Embarkation Deck, Bay XVII)-**

"...are you even listening to me, Blake? _Blake_!?"

"Wha...!?"

The feline Faunus blinked away sights best left forgotten to find a tan skinned hand dangling in front of her face. A friend's concerned tone finally registering against the bustle of the cavernous space, the roar of powered tools chugging incessantly against metal sending up brilliant plumes of sparks that nagged at her thoughts.

"O-Oh...Oh, Ilia, you were saying...something?"

"Was I? So kind of you to finally notice." Her friend frowned, a quirked brow tugging at the darker spots that flavored her complexion as she brought her arms up behind her head, jostling the sleek brown tresses she kept pulled into a styled tail that curled down her chest from beneath her own raised cowl. "Took you long enough."

"Sorry, I was...distracted." Not the most creative of excuses, but not entirely untrue.

Shaking the fugue from her eyes, Blake leaned forward over the gang-ramp's dented railing to stare out over the almost kilometer long expanse of the embarkation deck below. Rife with the organized madness of reconciling a Company's worth of war materiel taken from the surface of savaged Ambria...or Two-Zero-Three-Seventeen as it was now regarded.

An effort weeks in the undertaking as the Serf understood it, the Legion's mechanized assets suffering heavily under their Masters' more violent inclinations.

Dented hull plating in the process of being parsed free from drop ships and recovered assault pods sitting nestled in their crash cradles, the pieces to be hauled away by hulking mind-slaved bulk Servitors even as their fellows dragged forth freshly fabricated replacements. Severed conduit lines remolded or stripped entirely to be replaced as necessary. fuel umbilicals seething with viscous promethium heaved into place by sweating teams of menials while ammo crates were brought forth by the dozen upon stuttering grav-carts.

Snarling XIIth Legion livery repainted and sanctified though more often barely maintained if not entirely worked around in most cases, a common affectation of the World Eaters being to bear ones scars proudly for all to see.

Martian Priests scurrying to and fro on insectile limbs, blurting bitter binaric complaints at such insult to their charge's Machine Spirits, though clearly knowing better than to argue such issue to the Red Angel's Sons directly. Adepts garbed head to toe in thick coveralls swarming like ants falling upon a carcass, eager to earn their scrip in scrap metal and sanctified salvage.

A deafening chorus of a thousand menial tasks assailing her twitching ears, despite the muffling hood and silk ribbon worn to conceal her true nature.

 _'How many of those drawn were committed on Remnant? In Vale? Vacuo?'_ She wondered to herself idly, smiling at old names once so familiar. Observing as fresh kill markings were meticulously daubed across prows and snarling fronts. Honors granted in addition to a score of others from battles waged across a galaxy on the brink of conquest. _'How many of our own people are down there? How many Faunus...?'_

"Hmm, distracted. Right, saw that." Ilia said dryly from off to the side, directing her attention to the nearest cupola situated almost directly below them. Orbs of grey narrowing towards the Legion Thunderhawk gunship currently undergoing it's final rites of maintenance and refueling. Different from those around it by dint of its colors and the emblem emblazoned across its sides.

Where most other craft settled to rest within the _Daggerline's_ confines bore proudly the ashen white and dull blue of the World Eaters they carried to war, their snarling maw plain to see, this individual was marked out in unassuming gunmetal grey. Still showing true the burning book of blessed Lorgar across its prow...

 _'No, not so blessed anymore...'_ She reminded herself with a tremor of marked hesitation, eyeing the symbol warily.

A rarity now, though a great many would never know to spot the inaccuracy in heraldry, not until it was too late.

It's only other decoration that of a shattered silvery moon rampant upon a field of flames worked along the flanks of the craft. A match to that of the symbol she and Ilia wore sewn across their breasts. The mark of those they served, the mark of the Chapter...a pale memory of a night sky she hardly remembered...

" _Sooooo_. This ' _distraction',_ wouldn't happen to have anything to do with where you disappeared to? Had to come up with some pretty fine excuses and everything, though you know how hard it is to hard it is to hide anything from...!?"

She turned to shoot the other serf a wry grin only to shudder in the face of scowl her friend returned in cold warning.

"Bad joke, don't worry." She murmured, looking away. Skin instinctively flushing a virulent green interspersed with patches of blue for the barest instant beneath the folds of a shapeless black cowl that marked her station as much as it did Blake's, betraying her Faunus heritage to any prudent soul that might've spared a glance their way. "I kept my mouth shut, just like I always have about you and _...that."_

"Ilia."

The Cat Faunus bit her lip apologetically, wearily shaking her head to rid herself of what vitriol remained while the Chameleon cursed in broken Colchisian at her emotion-driven slip. Composing herself towards a more appropriate tone. One that wouldn't have the nearest Armsman unfamiliar with their Abhuman genus reaching for their holster in shock.

"I've found them. You wouldn't believe it. I've actually found others! People who believe as I do! The Overseers lied, the faith is still alive and...and...!?"

"..."

She noticed the scowl brewing as Ilia digested the words. Biting down on her excitement, the effort more than she thought, less than she'd hoped.

"And...Nevermind, just...just drop it, won't you? Nothing to be concerned about."

As much as bearing witness to an illicit -if disturbingly fascinating- gathering of faithful souls paying homage to one of the old Legion's greatest shames could be considered nothing at any rate.

Given it wasn't as if she could just openly admit to stumbling across such a thing, especially seeing as it hadn't been as much ' _stumbling_ ' as it had been ' _seeking_ '...

Such had been all that kept her sane, since first encountering those wretched few souls still lurking in the depths of the _Puras Fide._ Men and women clinging desperately to shadows of an old religion as those around them bartered their souls freely with things better off left unknown.

A spark of defiance amidst the darkness of their lives that Blake had accepted...

"Blake, don't treat me like some idiot." She choked back her indignation, keeping her voice down lest they be overheard. "We're supposed to know better than this. The things we've both said, seen, and done! If anybody else were to find out, if _they_ found out you believe The Emperor is actually some sort of...?"

"They won't!" Silence fell between the friends, heated and heavy. Broken of course by Ilia's brashness, never comfortable in silence.

 _"Tsk..._ Fine, be like that. I'm not the one the Viridis'll be angry with...oh wait! That's right, he's always angry with me, isn't he? How could I ever forget?"

"Maybe if you stopped referring to him by name instead of his rank?" Blake offered with a rare smile in face of the old argument, accepting the way out of the awkward tension though remembering it still.

Seeing her fellow Faunus' bravado and meager defiance for what it was. Loving her friend for it...

"Ever think of that?"

"Ever think of giving up your little 'distraction'?" The Serf's resounding silence was answer enough, the Chameleon's moment of victory souring as motion drew her attention towards an uproar mounting nearby, heralded by the clanging of bulkheads and the booming of power-armoured steps. "Speak of the devi... _ah_!?"

An elbow to the side silenced her not a moment too soon. Their master, their Lord, stepping onto the Embarkation Deck proper with the stride none expected of the outsider he so clearly was in this den of brutes and killers.

Steely grey eyes like marble chips flecked with emerald leisurely scanning the contents of the cavernous extent. Picking apart every detail of the frantic serf's efforts to clear a path, of vehicles gutted and awaiting tender reconsecration, and his own servants'...his own slaves, whose presence found itself remarked upon in an instant with upraised brow and powerful stride.

Viridis, Appointed Chaplain of the XVIIth Legion Word Bearers and Spiritual Leader of the so-declared Chapter of the Shattered Moon, proved an intimidating individual even by the usual overwhelming physical standards inherent of the Legiones Astartes.

Easily looming nearly a head taller in decorative black robes hung thick with lavish honorifics and blessed parchments than those World Eaters in full armour marching with him as escort, dismissed with a casual wave of an augmetic prosthesis of black metal ringed to the forearm with etched scriptwork set deep into the surface in silvery relief.

Sigils innocuous to the ignorant, yet terrifying to those that knew of their true provenance. Humming with unseen potency...

Dusky patrician features so common to the gene-line of the Urizen, remarkably unblemished despite decades of warfare, stood locked as it often was in almost eternal grimace of stoic tranquility.

A state of being Blake had only ever truly seen broken on rare occasion in the rapture of pitched combat or devoted observance. Head shaved bare but for a long, braided length of oiled black hair that burgeoned from his crown like a serpent's tail, threaded with thin strands of oxidized brass wiring.

"Blessings of the True Faith be upon you, Lord Chaplain." Both Faunus intoned by wrote in hushed approximations of a lesser Colchisian dialect. Dropping a knee in servile obeisance at the Astartes' approach, heads hung low. "Bearer of the Word, we serve."

"Amitola, Belladonna."

Viridis' voice as the names were spoken, contrary to his blunt appearance was a thing soft and svelte yet edged with something deeper. A timbre that could whisper soft velvet in a confidant's ear in one moment and exult hundreds to zealous violence upon the next.

A demagogue's voice, a liar's...

"Rise. I can only trust you've enjoyed your days upon the _Daggerline_?" The taunt, spoken in jest even if his face failed to convey the warmth implied. "Quite a storied history it bears for your home world, does it not? Quite a bloody one, as is the XIIth's penchant for such things."

"Our task is paramount, Lord Chaplain." Ilia spoke aloud, answering the goading implication to their continued loyalty. Always tests, never ceasing, such was their nature. " What came before is no longer our concern, only what comes after."

These things needing to be stated after all, the Chaplain often making ritual of the theatrics involved. Their mission of critical importance, in a manner of speaking.

To venture among the crew of the _Daggerline_ and the 12th Company of the XIIth Legion, preparing for what was to be the culmination of a grand ruse half a century in the planning. One they barely understood even a fraction of, yet knowing it would work to change the face of the Imperium forever.

And whatever it was, it involved the Warrior Lodges, fraternities of Space Marines from across the Legiones Astartes gathering in secret to discuss matters of brotherhood without the restriction of rank or predetermination...or so it was meant to appear. The truth being, as was the case with many of the concepts developed by the XVIIth, rather mutable.

Take the Faunus' assignment for example.

To lie, conceal, and perpetrate treachery, concepts wholly anathema to those in the Emperor's service...all in the name of beings Blake could recognize, for none could doubt their existence having seen what she'd seen.

And yet she still held out hope, belief in something more...something perhaps foolish.

"We have sought answers to the query you posed, we serve at your will. And those of the Powers." His Serf concluded, accent breaking with a ragged wet cough that simply _was_ at the mention of their divinity. "A-Always."

The air growing suddenly heavy, a cold iron chill radiating down Blake's spine at the renewed cackling she heard in her head...the chanting...the symbols blending with flesh and shade...

"Your commitment stands unshaken, then? Both of you?" The Chaplain mused, the disbelief immediately evident as it was meant to be. "Whispers declare almost a full third of this vessel's complement hails from your world. Why, as I understand some Faunus may even thrive between the decks. Yet you've remained true as the Powers demand? Knowing what may come of it? You are both willful, it is why you are thought useful in this particular task."

"Ours is the Legion, in flesh and blood. In spirit and faith, despite our...flaws." Blake said now, the speech engraved into her mind...the lie she told. Her heart thundering as Ilia spared her a sidelong glance without meaning to...

Race, World, the bonds of Kingdom and the like. It was as much a trial as any the pair had ever faced since the Word Bearers had taken them in, as the had so many other unfortunates forgotten by their world.

Works of Dogma could be falsified, Endeavors of Bloodshed could be chalked to luck or prowess, but a Task of Loyalty...

"Your will is ours, Lord. We are your eyes, your ears, and your blades as is ordained. What would you have of us?" Viridis' focus fell upon her, she knew. Searching for doubt, seeking falsehood. So Blake returned in her tone and words what she'd hoped he wished to see.

Faith and conviction drawn from deep within her being, if not directed towards a source he'd have approved. Doubtless he would have struck her down then and there had he the barest inkling of her true... _distraction_.

A thin trickle of discomfort niggling at her nerves, the sensation of the chill flat of a blade caressing her throat...

" _Hmph_...I would have you speak." He growled tersely, evidently satisfied with his assessment. The Astartes Warrior-Priest contenting himself, glaring about the hanger deck with marked distaste.

"Days spent languishing among these heathens has proven pointless as it is taxing. Time is against us in this matter as it is, Blessed Lorgar and the Warmaster must be made aware of who can and cannot be depended upon to act at the appointed hour." He bared perfect white teeth in a subtle snarl, putting Blake in mind of something like a hound or a wolf...perhaps the reason the First Chaplain had assigned him to a World Eater's vessel in the first place?

The thought almost made her lips quirk, until then she remembered herself. Where she was, who she spoke to.

"You've had time to walk where I have not or could not, time to see. What have you learned? Quickly!"

"That the Captain of the 12th Company, Macer Varren, is a soul starkly opposed to the underlying concept presented by the Warrior Lodges." Blake said, eyes fixed on the braided metal decking beneath her feet, counting the rusted rivets hidden between the links. "Openly espousing the dual notions of honor and martial brotherhood which he promotes as a cornerstone of the XIIth Legion's doctrine among his men. It makes sense he would be distrustful of the covert manner in which the Lodges operate, secrecy and subterfuge being anathema to his own beliefs."

"Those that do not comply are transferred without ceremony from the Fleet, or...or find they do not often survive the field for long afterwards." Ilia added, picking up where her ally had left off without missing a beat. Her own eyes fixated on the Space Marine's ceramite boots. "The circumstances of the deaths are suspect at best, going by what I gleaned from the Apothecarion's records. I suspect the Captain is quelling dissension, one way or another."

"Typical. A true World Eater through and through, it would seem. Suspicious of anything he can't pick up and bludgeon his enemies to death with."

The Space Marine dismissed his erstwhile cousin, irritation creasing at broad features.

"So you say the seeds my Brother-Chaplains and I have sown so carefully have failed to take root and flower amidst his Company? None at all might yet be turned?"

Ilia was the first to answer the Chaplain's question that time, bravely taking the brunt of what ire might persist as she'd always done to her peril, or very least blunt its edge...

"Some, Lord Chaplain. Scattered piecemeal throughout the Company's ranks though no more than a handful. The same extends to the crew, pockets of dissatisfaction aboard ship, mostly survivors of blessed Remnant." A brief pause to let her Master process the words and respond as he would, the Faunus expecting a blow that thankfully didn't manifest. "Far from enough to achieve the Warmaster's purpose on their own without direct aid, but present nonetheless. At least going by what you've described, if more was revealed to us then perhaps...!?"

Blake winced, knowing her friend had strayed too far but holding her tongue. To try and aid her would only compound matters, aiding neither as both had learned long ago.

"Our purpose, child." He snapped in a low whisper, Ilia recoiling as though physically struck. "Speak properly or don't at all."

"Er...My Lord?"

"' _Our_ Purpose.' We do each of us serve this grand vision in our own way. The Warmaster merely manning the helm, while the Powers that be grant a guiding light by which for all to forge ahead. One that far eclipses the paltry light of the Emperor's own beacon in its brilliance." A tremor of emotion revealed itself, Blake noting way his digits twitched longingly towards a sheathed strip of glossy black metal hanging off his belt by a length of silvery wire. "This is an endeavor of the species, thus it is _our_ purpose. Remember that as you recognize your place in it."

"A-As you say, Lord Chaplain! My deepest apologies for my ignorance!" Ilia lowered her head, biting her lip so hard it bled in an effort to still the quivering in her knees. Frustration warring with instruction behind that gaze.

Some might have called it cowardice to lower one's eyes in the face of such chastisement. Blake would challenge any of them to stand as her friend stood now, having endured what they had.

" _Hmph..._ It is expected. The full details of this great work, the magnitude of what we strive to achieve is beyond mortal comprehension. The scope of it, the moving pieces in play...monumental, which is why I leave you to complete this task alone. Pressing duties demanding attention." Viridis shook his bared head, signalling the end of his attentions. An end to his gloating, disguising a deeper frustration... "Rest assured, Pet, you will know well the hour you are called to service. Show the Chapter, show the Legion, that that the Brotherhood's confidence in your race and the resources invested in your...'cultivation' have not gone to waste."

His augmetic rose slowly with utmost care, gently reaching beneath his servant's hood. Unyielding plasteel dragging across the fabric Blake's bow and the concealed secret twitching beneath. The script carved upon the device seeming to pulse at the contact, sending pulsations of a feeling not truly pain yet far from comfort tingling down her nerves.

That charged touch lingering upon her synapses as might a shroud, just as it had on that awful night so long ago...

* * *

 _...Kali Belladonna begging for clemency as she struggled to shield her daughter, gripping so tight the young girl couldn't draw breath._

 _A gleaming dagger of blackened glass, streaked red from an open wound._ _Held in the hands of a young woman barely older than she with eyes that glowed like burning brands in the darkness, smiling in cruel rapture._ _Surrounded by chanting giants that stood as statues bathed in blood...Her blood, her Mother's blood, mixing as one while shadows blended in the firelight...a gauntlet-clad hand reaching out towards her face..._

* * *

..."The Powers watch in eager anticipation, my Pets." A voice like steel drawn across silk parsed her eardrums, _his_ voice bolstered by things beyond the pale. Though blessedly the pressure at least vanished from her head, though the old appellation still lingered in her eardrums like a bleeding wound.

Heavy footfalls told of the Space Marine's departure down the shuddering gantry towards the idling Thunderhawk below, engine flares igniting from dull orange to fierce white...snapping jaws of things too terrible to dream dancing within the flames.

Things that Blake imagined only she could see, for she doubted they were truly there to start. The Chaplain's final whispered words ringing to her keen perceptions...

"Do not question, do not fail. Such would be... _unfortunate_."

* * *

 **-II-**

 **-(XIIth Legiones Astartes Frigate " _Daggerline_ ", 004.M31 Approx. - Embarkation Deck, Viewing Stratum)-**

"I don't think I'll ever understand how you can do it. Lie the way you do, right to his face!" Ilia grumbled as the pair watched the Word Bearer's drop ship soar free of the oxygen envelope of the Frigate. Retros kindling to vibrant life as it pushed towards the looming transport sitting at anchorage several thousand kilometers distant.

A vessel the Faunus had spent weeks cooped up in on their way here, scouring themselves in training and suffering the Word Bearer's directed attentions...

"Doesn't it scare you, even a little? Dust of Remnant, we both know _what_ our Lord...what that _Monster_ preaches." She struggled with the insult. That she was still able to breathe it was miracle in and of itself. A testament to the inner strength that had kept her for the most part sane. "We both know what the Legion is capable of! But yet still you...gods!?" The reptilian Faunus spat on the grates, eyes pained.

"Of course it does." Blake replied tenderly, wondering for not the first time which gods her referred to. Praying in her heart that it was merely old habit rather than something new and insidious taking root, but doubting even so...

For indeed how could such things not frighten her? Blake even more so than many others Ilia included...

She'd witnessed and been forced to perform acts that no soul, mortal or otherwise, should ever be expected to remember let alone comprehend. Horrors dragged from nightmare that had scarred her body and mind if not more besides even before the Legion's Apothecaries had changed her.

Acts inflicted upon innocent and sinner alike, and still yet left her shooting upright in her bunk coated in a cold sweat screaming...remembering her Mother's kind words if not her features, her face...the impression of a smile...

But Ilia was mistaken. They didn't _know_ the things taught to them by wrote and deed, didn't understand the mysteries dredged from the warp.

In truth, she suspected few did, even amongst the Word Bearers themselves as much as men like Viridis might pretend otherwise...

"But I still do believe, I have to." She hated how pleading it sounded, how weak and feeble her conviction seemed. Faith was strong, belief mighty... "It's all I have left, the only thing that seems real. If you'd only listen...!"

"Listen? Even if it's wrong!? After all those years of struggling to forget the things they teach us, of keeping something akin to a soul intact!"

Her companion rounded on her, shoving a hand that Blake hadn't even realized she'd reached out away from her so forcefully that it forced the cat Faunus bodily into the protective railing. So hard that it bowed the wrought metal outward and sent up a glimmer of coruscating purplish energy crackling across her frame.

A force that might have betrayed them to any who might still Remember the bygone days of Remnant's obsolete heroes.

"Everything we've seen lurking in the empyrean, _that's_ real! You and me, surviving this madness with something to show for it, _that's_ real, and so is whatever's happen to us if we don't deliver on our word! What the Legion will do to us, have you even considered that!? No, no you're too busy paying lip service to a being who's outright said they aren't a god!"

"Only the truly divine deny their divinity." Ilia's face twisted at the adage, "Such were the Primarch's own words."

"Words they both denied in the end! A _human_ god, a human! How about you listen to yourself for once!? Don't you remember what the Imperium did, to us, to your parents, to our people!"

"Don't you mean what the Legion did...!?"

"What the Imperium allowed them to do, Blake! Sordid details omitted or not, Menagerie still burned, Faunus across Remnant thrown to the wolves, and did the anyone care how? No, just that it got done with resources intact!"

The other woman overrode her, anger coloring her skin a reddish hue much like fresh blood...the color of fresh treachery.

"All those men, women, and children...all those people! Those cowards on Terra didn't care about us then, _He_ doesn't care! They wanted our world just like with every other Compliance, and the Word Bearers were the ones to give it to them along with Fulgrim's and that monster Angron's get, taking us in the bargain for their trouble. And you want to help them!? Let them both burn in the fires they start, I say!"

¨That's not...!?¨ She felt her denials die in her throat, brought low in the face of her friend. Not by her arguments or her opinions, but her face. _That_ face.

Concern replaced by confusion...fear...resignation. The same sort of look Saber Rodentia had carried so long ago. The tension leaving her spirit, if not her bearing. "I just...I worry for you, Blake. The more you resist things, the worse it'll be in the end. That's how it works. Think about what happened to Adam!"

Of course she'd stoop there, of course she would. Damn her...

* * *

 _...Memories of defiant blue eyes and a confident smile even through the terrors...  
Those same features twisted in agony as the brand fell...Wicked knives cutting and bleeding, things from beyond the unreal becoming all too real in a chamber molded to amplify the screams of a throat red and raw twisted to howls of manic ageless glee..._

* * *

"...At least if we accept it, we get to keep some pieces of ourselves... _for_ ourselves. It's not worth fighting, nothing's worth _that_."

"Nothing's worth what we'll be doing to the rest of galaxy either!" To _His_ galaxy, to _His_ Imperium... ¨We have an opportunity here, Ilia! A chance to do some real good! We can at least warn people, even if we don't know the full scope!"

"By the gods, Blake, wake up! Warn people? You're abhuman, and not even of this mongrel Legion, if that would even matter at all!" She was ranting now, but with enough truth to make it bite even so...Ilia was good at that, almost as good as she was at her Master's other sordid tasks. "Why do you think Viridis was alright leaving us here alone, no _Majir_ or Legionaries to keep us in line, huh?"

"W-We've done everything he's ever asked and more!"

Years of cruel study, brutal training, lurking in the dark enduring such heresy...

" _Think_ , Blake! Who would you even tell? Captain Varren? The crew? What would you say? That the Emperor's Loyal Legions are plotting behind his back? That his favored son's gone and turned Traitor?" She loosed a bitter laugh, the sound falling like coarse sand upon Blake's awareness. "They'd probably kill you for even suggesting the possibility of what the Warmaster intends, let alone believe you! And even if they did, one Frigate and a ship full of rabid berserkers against who knows what?"

"We know they're loyal! The fire of the truth spreads faster than any bolt round, if nothing else the Word Bearers had that right!"

"Loyal, right. While you're at it, you may as well mention your God-Emperor too. See if _that_ wins you any points...!"

Blake couldn't stomach the pity on her friend's face any longer, diverting her focus towards the throng of activity below. Menials fussing over a smoking air-recyc unit hauled from the exposed innards of a scavenged Predator Tank, a nearby Tech Priest warbling their dismay and cursing incompetence even as one of its own toiled with rolled sleeves up to the elbow deep in machine guts.

Flashing arc welders and assisted lumen globes throwing determined pale features into stark relief...? She did a quick double take, blinking to make sure she wasn't mistaken.

 _'Wait, is that...?...It is...'_

"Blake?" Ilia must've noticed something in her manner, mistaking it for something other than it was...though not completely. "L-Look, I'm sorry I mentioned Adam, alright? And for all this, but I...I can't lie, not to you. I can't...!? What's the matter? Talk to me, like we used to!"

The matter was the shadowed blade recognized the little Adept almost instantly at a glance, as she had been trained and conditioned to do throughout her service to the Legion. And what's more important, recalled exactly _where_ she'd seen her.

The surprise and curiosity counteractive to the pleading in the reptile's words. Too focused was she on distinctly colored hair and a crimson mantle about her shoulders. That innocuous symbol present even as she squatted amidst engine scum and grease puddles, and then those curious silver eyes unlike any she'd ever seen.

The same that had looked on Blake so nervously in the depths of the vessel while those around her engaged in the proscribed and forbidden, and now endeavored to make it appear as though she hadn't been actively staring up at the pair arguing above her.

An alarmed squeak no normal ears would've heard over the din registering rather comically to Blake's senses as the young woman realized her curiosity discovered and panicked.

 _'How much had she already seen? What does she...?'_

"Nothing." She said in answer, trying to ignore the hurt afflicting her friend at the finality. "It's nothing."

"Oh of course it is. Always nothing!" Ilia sighed in exasperation at the excuse, the pair glowering at one another for a long while. Grey eyes pleading with Amber, but Blake wouldn't budge nor feel the slightest hint of contrition...she couldn't. "Your plan isn't gonna work, Blake. Please...I won't fail in this, not because of you...not even _for_ you. I'm just not that brave."

"I wouldn't expect any such thing." Blake sighed turning away, and exposing her back. "It's a leap of faith after all."

A part of her half expected her comrade to go for the coiled whip concealed beneath a slit her robes. Her own palms tingling to reach for the curved short sword belted at her waist concealed in the folds of her own uniform. Either Faunus knowing they could've drawn and spilled vitae in an instant had they wished, Aura or no.

Both knew this well...and yet when she looked over her shoulder, Blake found herself entirely alone upon the creaking gantry. Ilia nowhere to be seen.

Blissfully alone with only her thoughts for perhaps the first time in over a decade, and the first thing that came to mind was of course...

* * *

 **-III-**

 **-(XIIth Legiones Astartes Frigate " _Daggerline_ ", 004.M31 Approx. - Auxiliary Observation Deck)-**

"...I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm _sorry_!..."

"I'm...sorry?" Was all she could voice in reply. Her mind perplexed.

In fairness, there were a great many avenues Blake had anticipated the young red hooded woman might take upon being called out for her faith, or her connection to it at any rate. Experienced as she was in the psychology of the human mind, and bearing her own secrets besides.

Faith could do strange things to people, especially humans...perhaps even Faunus, when they believed themselves exposed.

Some would inevitably attempt ignorance in embarrassment claiming a mistake, other would inevitably make effort to flee the scene in a fright at being discovered.

She'd even prepared for the smaller female to try and attack her. Noting several implements such as the arc-torches or maintenance spanners of which she might grab that could mark her out as a pressing threat, if not precisely a potent one to the Faunus' person.

Knowing in turn how she would respond to each in a way that wouldn't cause undue harm to the subject...

 _'...To the girl, she's a person. A human being, not a target...!'_

Still, Human or no, what she hadn't expected the young woman -fresh from her shift going by the telling layer of grime coating most every inch of her- to suddenly appear and all but manhandle the Faunus through an arched egress corridor barred with lengths of striped plas-tape up and onto a neglected observation deck.

The cavernous space blessedly devoid of personnel but for a few drooling mono-tasked Servitors chipping away at their designated purposes. Patching jagged marks torn across the metal facing of the wall as if by a rabid animal.

A location isolated despite providing an encompassing view of the activity in the hanger deck beyond a broad stretch of tinted armor-glass stained brown with splotches of ruddy crimson yet to be removed.

It's provenance made obvious by the scent, undoubtedly the reason for the lack of personnel.

* * *

 _...Violent death...World Eaters, she'd heard the stories of course but to see evidence of their handiwork firsthand..._

* * *

Regrettable...Still none of that mattered as Blake Belladonna, Serf and Blade of the XVIIth Legion among other less savory titles, stood taken aback and unsure while her would be assaulter began apologizing profusely in teary-eyed dismay. Bowing low in a fumbling equivalent of a Serf's prostrations with tattered cloak fluttering about her.

Poorly done in the Faunus' opinion, obviously imitated by example rather than practice. Such a lack of poise would've seen her doing penance among the XVIIth, if she were lucky

Of course it was more the contents of the hastily delivered regrets that gave her pause than the motions, especially given the sheer avalanche of verbiage. Let it be said the diminutive Adept knew how to get a great many words out loud in between breaths.

"...and I know, I know I shouldn't have been staring, it's rude and I shouldn't have! It's just I recognized you from the meeting the other day and...o-oh that's right we're not supposed to talk about that stuff, or can we with friends...but we're not...? Sorry...it's just I wanted to introduce myself because aside from Yatsuhashi I really don't know anyone else who I can talk to about...ah darn it! I shouldn't have mentioned his name without his permission, please please _pleeease_ forget I said that! Anyway, then I saw you talking with that scary looking Astartes, and then your friend started yelling...and...and...!?"

"Breathe, then start again. Slower. Understand?" The girl's dust-coated cheeks puffed and colored as she drew in a deep breath and nodded, face reddening by degrees. "Good. Now then, Blake." She brought a hand to her chest, unconsciously moving to cover the symbol on her chest.

She'd need to rid herself of the accouterment soon, if for nothing else than her own comfort.

"And you are?"

"Ruby!" She blurted, startling the Faunus back a tad. Ruby, as she was apparently known, flushed even brighter if that were possible. "T-That's my name, I mean. Ruby Rose, Voidswoman Minoris Third Class in service of the _Daggerline_ and the XIIth Legiones Astartes, and _er_...provisional Tech Novitiate of the Mechanicum."

"Provisional? That's..."

Strange, curious, unheard of? To her knowledge, the Priesthood of the Red Planet was an insular order of hierarchy and guarded secrecy, not something one exactly dabbled in on a whim. And by what could only have been a Remnant-born no less.

"...Remarkable." She settled on.

"Ahhh, that's nothing really. " Ruby squirmed at the complement, beaming all the while with an excitement that carried into her next outburst. "Especially since you can use a thing like Aura and all, right? Like a real life Huntress...!?"

Somehow, Blake seriously doubted the young Adepta knew just how close she had come to death with that careless rambling. She just stood there, perhaps a little...no, _very_ nervous, staring.

Unaware of how every ingrained instinct forcefully instilled by the cults and the whispers begged for the Faunus to dispatch the girl here and now in this most perfect of hideaways. To conceal her unique advantage over other mortals, just as she'd always been instructed.

One slice and what danger there was would be silenced permanently, cleanly. A body perhaps cleared by one of the Servitors to be discovered hours later if at all. By which time the Agent of the Word would be embedded in the shadowy depths of the Frigate. All the better for the Pet to enact her Master's bidding in the name of...!?

 _'...No, that's not me!...'_

She bit her lip so hard it felt as though it might bleed, restricting the violent impulse and smothering it by dint of determination and sheer willpower. Succeeding, though not without drawing undue notice.

Figures. Barely an hour of true freedom and already she'd come so close to falling back on old habits, tendencies better left forgotten...sloppy.

"I...I wasn't supposed to have seen that, was I?" Ruby asked, eyes widening in realization and to Blake's own surprise a hint of remorse. "I'm sorry, it's just that my parents are... _were_ Hunters back on Remnant before Compliance. My Uncle Qrow too, though it isn't like I really remember them all too well." She shrugged tiny shoulders, picking at a spot of engine scum clinging to her mantle. "I do know he rescued my sister and I back when we were really young, some Grimm had us cornered in the forest near our home when suddenly he flies out of the forest all *W _hoosh*_ and _*Hyah*_!" She suddenly swept her hands in chopping arcs, face lighting up for a split second before picking up on the Faunus' bemused confusion, coughing into her hand. "Sorry."

"Don't be." The Serf was swift to reassure her, wincing as her feline trait twitched beneath her bow involuntarily. "If anything I'm just...relieved. Relieved, I don't need to explain myself, that's all."

" _Theeeen,_ are you a...?"

"I'm no Huntress, Ruby, that you can be sure of." A sigh of disappointment registered to her senses, so low a human might not have heard it, but a Faunus... "Ruby?"

"Not a Huntress...but if you can use Aura, that must mean that...that you're from Remnant too, right? Like me!" Her face lit up with renewed interest, Blake already sensing the question long before it passed from her lips, dreading them with a silent curse in bitter Colchisian. "Where from? Mistral? Vacuo? _Ooooh_ or Atlas!? I've only ever seen old picts! Is it true the Kingdom really flies...!?"

"Hovers, really, or so I heard." She did her best to be vague, counting her blessings that the girl appeared unaware of the XVIIth Legion's actions upon Remnant, within Menagerie...difficult to pose as human if such a thing were discovered. "As for my home...I'd rather not talk about it. Many things changed in those days with the coming of the Imperium. Not all of them for the better."

"Uh, yeah. I guess that's true." Ruby muttered awkwardly, picking up on her reluctance if not truly understanding it. An expected reaction from one so young, this ship her life, Remnant a fogged recollection... "S-Sorry if I've screwed up my manners again, I should know better than to pry. Yang's always saying..."

"Yang?" Strange, the name seemed to tug at something in the girl's demeanor. A flicker of concern, hurt, and such...immediately lost behind a cheery smile.

 _'Why, this girl's full of secrets...'_

Of course, Blake would be the last person to judge a person based on such, only that she was at least better at keeping them.

 _'...Aside from your Aura, that is...'_

Ruby Rose to her credit appeared kind though seemed an inherently shy soul, if one that desired to be liked and accepts as most young adolescents often did. It made her wish to speak, to share her knowledge and secrets with those portraying genuine interest.

A good friend, but often times a poor confidant in the long term...

Blake hated how naturally she exploited this, how easily it came to her.

"Your sister?"

"Yeah...well half-sister technically, but she's never really bothered with all that." Ruby said rubbing at her hair sheepishly, heedless of adding more grease to the rat's nest a top her head. "Just people are always wondering given she's strong and tall and erm...wowza, and then I'm just normal Ruby Rose, knobbly kneed and good-ish at fixing what's broken."

How curious it was to see such blatant honesty so freely given...

"Wowza? That's an interesting word, I'm unfamiliar. Something else from Remnant, from Vale?" A lucky guess, the girl hadn't mentioned the Kingdom in her list. A Kingdom his almost as hard as Menagerie had been or so she'd discovered...a show of force from the likes of the XIIth.

If anything she was lucky she'd been so young, unable to remember such details.

"Maybe but, no, i-it doesn't matter! What I meant is that she's just really something! She serves the Legion too, or I guess we all do but...oh you get the idea." Strange, when had Rose started smiling through the red cheeks and stammering? When had Blake joined her, growing comfortable in this social awkwardness?

Perhaps it was just her emotions out of sorts so soon after Ilia's...whatever had that been. Or maybe she was just enjoying the girl's embarrassment for what it was. Innocent.

"She sounds rather impressive, this Yang Xiao Long."

"She is, she really is! And that's not all!" Ruby dropped her voice conspiratorially, glancing at the Servitors warily while they committed to their duties. "She's like you...at least I think so. She can use Aura too!"

"Really?"

That certainly seemed...unlikely.

"Yeah, she tries to hide it, but I notice things here and there. Like whenever she's finished fighting in the pits her injuries always seem to heal rather quickly, quicker than normal anyway, and she sometimes...I don't know. Sometimes she seems stronger than she should be, especially when she's losing. Not that she's weak or anything like that, it's just that even with what gifts and changes the Legion's provided...!"

Blake listened intently as the excitable youth listed a number of strange happenstances where ever this 'Yang Xiao Long' was involved. Gently asking probing questions or prodding clarifications to encourage the girl into opening up further...

Instances of extraordinary durability, sudden bursts of strength that one couldn't explain away even with adrenaline. All things that possession of an active Aura, even raw and untrained, could explain away easily enough.

It wasn't as if such a thing were impossible either, in fact it had comprised much of the reason why Viridis and his Company had taken her and so many others. A talent unlike anything discovered throughout the length and breadth of the Great Crusade. A useful one at that.

One that had eluded the Imperium's, and a fair few Magos Biologi besides, many _MANY_ attempts at study during Compliance.

Not so much in that it had been difficult to find subjects for trial, given those rare individuals who could manifest and utilize the gift had conveniently gathered themselves into one rather blatant caste on Remnant.

Yet no matter how many Huntsmen and Huntresses, willing or otherwise, submitted themselves to their examinations, few concrete assumptions could truly be formed as to its exact nature.

Some of course suspected a Psychic influence, a mutation of some such caused by the Warp anomaly manifesting itself relatively close to Remnant and long-term exposure to the psycho-reactive mineral known among the locals simply as "Dust". Others believing it some lost example of intentional genetic tampering, something left over from the horrific halcyon days of Old Night passed along through the generations, much as they hypothesized the Grimm to be...incorrectly as Blake would later learn.

Both theories had their merits of course, explaining if in small detail why it was that only a select few seemed so naturally capable with the gift, and why only those born on Remnant's surface seemed capable of having their Auras manifest successfully.

Those few attempts to unlock the Aura of a non-Remnant native proving...less so.

With such materiel cost that a moratorium for such research had even been called by those Adepts and Officials present. What Huntsmen and Huntresses still active tagged as assets by the Imperial Army among...other interested parties, for use offworld...

* * *

... _A sniveling man dressed in ragged remains of once fine clothes cast down to his knees before a group of terrified children by the careless shove of one of their snarling Majir Overseers...A weeping wretched soul, his graying beard and hair matted and unkempt, smeared thick with mucous and congealed blood...Some of the Children knew of this man, SHE had known of him by the lion's tail tucked securely between his legs...A Headmaster, a Teacher, a Huntsman of renown..._

 _...Forced to instruct, forced to judge...screaming for a man named Ozpin until his throat bled...  
_

* * *

...Or as was more often the case detained or worse for what danger they might pose to the reconstruction and compliance effort. Seeing as how their purpose for existing had been effectively subsumed with the eradication of the Grimm, their livelihood and status in society effectively terminated.

Blake for her part wasn't sure what she believed, only that the Word Bearers Chaplain had once in passing referred to the gift as an ' _Adaptation_ ' of a sort, whatever that meant...the young Feline quite unsure she wished to know,

Of course, the fact remained that the Faunus had manifested her own in extreme circumstance and had struggled for years to master its use ever since. The thought that some Pit Brawler was naturally managing to benefit from such techniques, while simultaneously attempting to keep it hidden no less among a Legion such as the XIIth, was almost absurd...

Yet still, looking at those gleaming silver orbs, Blake couldn't help but believe the girl's story. Most of it anyway.

"You should meet her, I could introduce you! We've never met anyone else who can use Aura before!"

"I don't..." She found her excuses stalled in the face of those big silver eyes, already widening at the prospect of denial. "Per-Perhaps, though if possible I'd like to keep my presence on board as discreet a can be afforded. An assignment from my Lord, you understand. Besides, Aura isn't exactly something understood among the Legions, let alone trusted. Your Sister is wise to keep such a gift discreet."

"O-Oh! Of course!"

Ruby nodded effortlessly in the face of the indirect falsehood, excitement and understanding coloring her perceptions for which Blake much appreciated. The girl was experienced in the hierarchy between Mortal and Astartes, of Serf and Master...she'd been taught not to question. Good.

 _'...Mayhaps she's telling the truth after all...'_ And she wasn't quite done yet, rooting around in the pockets of her jerkin.

"But even so, Blake, I...I want to say you'll be welcomed as one of the faithful aboard this ship if you desire sanctuary. Or at least that's what the Rector conveys after each sermon. Sort've like the Legionaries' fighting pits after a fashion...?" She shuffled in place, clearly noticing the bemused look on the other woman's face. "At least in that it's open to all who come seeking, so long as they come in peace that is."

"Must be difficult. Knowing who to trust with such a secret."

"We've had regrettable... _incidents_ , that's true. People don't always understand." The girl paused her rummaging, the dismay in her bearing clear evidence of what those ' _incidents_ ' may have entailed on a ship ruled by the Gladiator sons of Angron. Things Blake understood quite well... "But I just have a feeling. I-I mean I don't want to presume, but us running into each other like this again feels..."

"Technically you ran into me." The dry wit bled away to a deeper consideration. "But I think I understand what your trying to say. Though it's a bit presumptuous."

"The God-Emperor works his miracles in mysterious ways, or so it's written. Finding someone else from Remnant who believes, brought up by a whole other Legion. What are the chances?"

Objectively, astronomical if one ignored the fact that Viridis had selected Ilia and herself specially from among his retinue for this task. All because of a home world they barely remembered...

"Plus like I said, I don't really have many people to discuss things like this with, Yang doesn't understand, but she's always telling me to try and make friends."

Blake bristling visibly as the girl drew a strip of crumpled script from her pocket, taking the serf's hand in hers and slipping something into her grasp.

"Ruby, I'm here on Legion business, what's more I'm supposed to stand for the Imperial Truth. That of a secular universe." She didn't know why she said it, frowning when the red-hooded machinist distanced herself again grinning shyly. "I could be a threat, to you and the faithful."

"But I don't think so." She stated simply, the childish naivety and innocence of the statement striking the Hidden Blade of the Chapter of the Shattered Moon momentarily mute. "And besides, it's always been said that the XVIIth Legion were among the first to recognize _His_ Light for what it truly was! If I couldn't trust one of their own servants to protect the faith...?"

 _'Oh what little you know, Ruby, what little you know...'_

But that could be changed, couldn't it? Could she tell this girl, warn her and be believed? Warn the faithful to be vigilant and prepare for the days to come? Prepare for whatever foul perfidy...?

"Right, of course!" The bitter lie was blurted forth before she could help herself, though she knew not what possessed her to do so? "But, no I...?"

The reason along with the correction, any words she might've given to the contrary, dying on her lips as she stared down at what exactly had been placed in her palm.

"I...This is...?"

"Our last congregation was sort've rushed what with shift changes and the preparation for wherever we're heading to next, so I wasn't sure if you received one." She smiled nervously, trying to gauge the Faunus' reaction. "Glad I brought an extra with me, though it might be a bit grimy. We're not supposed to be leaving them around anymore so I needed to take it on shift..."

Blake cared little, scanning through the hastily scrawled hymnals and observances printed upon a leaflet if cheap yellowed parchment, partially smudged by grease and small fingerprints, with something approaching awe

Stamped across the top was some kind of emblem smudged from too many attempts at re-printing, a stylistic capital ''I'' worked a haloed star at its center...

A symbol Blake imagined must have some import or meaning, though those that had introduced her to the faith from the very start had been limited in such things by necessity.

An old stained pamphlet much like these, tattered and dog-eared from too many hands. An old charm worked out of refuse assembled by a figure of true if squalid devotion. A stray verse overheard from one of the God-Emperor's own loyal Astartes, misquoted decades later long after the original speaker had either perished or turned to a darker creed...

Such marks were powerful but dangerous in their lack of subtly, dangerous in that they could be found and exploited. Belief however could be hidden, cherished...as more than a few of her old friends and teachers had learned far too such somber thoughts soon vanished, however, as she read the cramped words inked onto paper.

 _-'...The Emperor of Mankind is the Light and the Way, and all his actions are for the benefit of mankind, who are His people. The Emperor is God and God is the Emperor, so it is taught in this, the Lectitio Divinitatus...'-_

She read and reread the words, memorizing them as succinctly as she had those blighted excerpts drawn from passages of the Book of Lorgar. Yet instead of the dread disgust inherently felt at the sheer numbing madness of a Demigod's heathen rambling, these stock observances instead filled her with a sort of warmth and hope.

So difficult was it to believe that such words, disparate as was possible, had been penned by the same hand. Lorgar Aurellion's hand, yet they might as well have been two separate individuals all together for all the similarity they bore.

A tangible connection to something intangible, yet real. Bigger than herself all, born of every verse and litany scrawled onto the page's margins by another's unsteady yet fervent hand.

And another of the Faithful was saying that this precious thing was hers...

-'... _Rejoice, for I bring you glorious news. God walks among us...'-_

"And he is the Emperor." She breathed holding the innocuous slip of paper to her breast, Ruby smiling along in recognition of another faithful soul fulfilled. "I...Thank you, thank you for this, Ruby."

"It's nothing much, really. Usually I'm the one sent along to make copies and all, probably what comes with being the only one who knows how to work a bulk-printer half decent. So many buttons and it can all get rather mes... _erm_?"

She fell silent, simply watching Blake poring over the pamphlet for a few scant heartbeats before grinning sheepishly. Steeling herself with a bobbing shake of the head that swept up a cloud of metal shavings and dust that made her sneeze.

"Y-You're very welcome, Blake. It's nice to meet...you?" She trailed off, attention caught by movement happening far below.

"What's going on?" Blake picked up on it too, an undercurrent of emotion charging the atmosphere. Overseers and deck masters marked out from the rabble by rank pins and colored epaulets currently engaged with sprinting too and fro, corralling their various teams into action or maybe retreat? Shouted commands and call for order filtering through the clear barrier, urgent and panicked in equal measure...

"Some kind of operations drill, maybe?"

Worry marred her new ally's brow, comfort drawing her fingers towards a charm bracelet hung about her wrist. A delicately wrought aquila jangling alongside what Blake struggled to belief was a Burn Dust crystal...a remnant of Remnant...

"Wait no, that's not right. Nothing was scheduled, and it's not like they would think to run a surprise inspection either? The Legionaries would go stir-crazy with all the noise and...uh? What's that?"

Blake followed the young faithful's pointer finger outward beyond the armor-glass screen. Staring far past the flickering grav-bubble that marked the hanger's egress into the deep void beyond. Towards a flickering _something_...a vague impression of movement cast against a background of faded distant stars.

Or as such it would've appeared to Ruby and likely any non-augmented human staring out at that vast canvas, _something_.

They wouldn't see ships of a kin beyond the nature of the human, striking a profile almost too delicate for their purpose, shimmering silently into existence as though breaking through a fine mist at speeds nigh impossible for any Imperial vessel.

Not for them the reality-shattering violence of a warp translation, no shrieking storms of coruscating madness that clawed at ironclad hulls barely kept intact beneath the aegis of coruscating gellar fields. Theirs were sleek ovular profiles knifing along real-space with the grace of dorsal finned void predators. Riding along on shimmering solar sails, deftly maneuvering into position to isolate the _Daggerline_ from the rest of the Expeditionary Fleet before any could even think to voice surprise let alone react to prevent what was to happen next.

"No...No, that can't be...!"

Blake saw, and what's more she _knew_ the profile of the encroaching fleet of vessels at a glance. Fingers crinkling the edges of the Lectitio Divinitatus pamphlet, the Faunus drawing from firsthand experience as much as whispered legend...

Long hours spent kneeling at Chaplain Viridis' side upon the Command dais of the XVIIth Legion Strike Cruiser _Puram Fide._ A dubious reward she'd earned along with his sponsorship by a blade's edge and the corpse boy with scales instead of skin...one of her own. A Faunus of Remnant...she'd even known his name once, another thing forgotten...

She recalled the guilt and the sick satisfaction of that singularly damning sin bleeding away into horrified awe. The armor-glass portals of the Strike Cruiser filled to bursting with the floating husks of similar craft burning their last gasping breaths out into the cold nothingness.

Carcasses of millennia old colony vessels withering under focused Macrocannon barrages capable of cracking whole continents to the core in their fury. Shattering organic bone-like material like with ruthless voracity and boundless zealotry.

The souls aboard offered up as sacrifice in honor of something greater, something far more ravenous.

An ancient name spilling from lungs in a breathless exhalation lost amidst the shrill whine of proximity alarms and collision alerts as the deck lurching beneath their feet. Unseen armaments raking the _Daggerline's_ ancient frame before it'd even had the chance to raise its flickering void shields to defend itself.

" _Eldar_...!?"

* * *

 ** _\- Log Terminated -  
_**

* * *

 ** _A/N: There we are, finally moving the plot along with a bit of conflict courtesy of our favorite(debatable) pointy-eared Xenos._**

 ** _As for the chapter itself, I'd love to hear thoughts on Blake, Cultist and closet Faithful of the Emperor after discovering what few survivors of the old Faith the Word Bearers espoused who persisted in the shadowy corners of their Fleet. Girl has her idealism from the show, this merely directing it along different avenues and doing her best to stay above notice._**

 ** _Of course she's not entirely untouched by the experience, she's a Word Bearer's Pet and has done her fair share of things she'd rather forget. How all that comes together is something I hope to explore going forward. Those little haunting memory bits involving Adam and a certain Headmaster._**

 ** _P.S: A heads up, Faunus are NOT extinct on Remnant given how spread out they are, though Menagerie (The main concentration) itself was for the most part purged. The population was severely reduced as a result but they're there. Some even made it offworld as Blake shows though not under the best circumstances. I've since updated the 1st chapter post note to make that a bit clearer. My bad on that one and thanks to all who pointed it out._**


	6. Chapter 6

_**(Disclaimer: I don't claim to own RWBY or Warhammer, those strictly fall under the purview of Roosterteeth and Games Workshop. This is just a passion project.)**_

* * *

 **\- Remnants of Remnant -**

* * *

 ** _Unwanted Guests_**

* * *

 _ **"When there is no other way, the perilous path is the only road to salvation."**_

\- Eldrad Ulthran, Farseer of Craftworld Ulthwé

* * *

 **-I-**

 **(XIIth Legiones Astartes Frigate "** ** _Daggerline_** **", 004.M31 Approx. - Command Bridge)**

From the earliest recorded instances of the Great Crusade, the frigate _Daggerline_ had served the Master of Mankind's ideals faithfully and with honour.

Ever present along the ever expanding front line of mankind's expansion. Once at the behest of the vaunted Terran War Hounds and their fierce host, later under the same Legion but a far different name.

Equipped for the close combat blockade offensives its temperamental Masters preferred, the ship boasted a rather aggressive presence for its tonnage with a long legacy to match. Bleeding the foes of the Emperor and Humanity with the voracity of a snapping canid.

This day however, it was the _Daggerline_ that bled in earnest. Spitting forth heated salvos out of spite spite, consigning several tons worth of ammunition to the emptiness. Rows of gun emplacements sparking like miniature stars, lance strikes igniting across the firmament, though scoring not a hit to show for it.

Those attacking glided effortlessly aside in the face of mass ordinance, return laser fire searing the black space between both sides as protective fields fizzled and hummed with actinic brilliance. Dozing auspex relays ill prepared to regulate or direct such coordinated assault under these unanticipated circumstances, the Eldar's shields somehow evading proper target locks and confusing heat signatures.

More and more of the lithe warships joining the erratically coordinated formation, ripping into guttering void shields with precision born of inhuman acumen and ageless prowess.

"All hands, status report!"

Macer Varren, Captain of the 12th Assault Company of the XIIth Legion shouted from his place a top the command lectern so as better to bear witness to the madness of activity whirling throughout the bridge. From frantic Officers and junior staff trading desperate calculations and heated orders between overclocked stations to the flickering hololith that thrummed and faltered with every shaking impact the ship sustained, of which there were many.

Far too many... "And turn off those alarms, I'm well aware of the threat! Seeing as it's now right on top of us!"

" _Compliance."_

" _Grragh..._ Where did you come from...where in blighted void did you bastards spring from!?" He seethed under his breath while staring at half a dozen scrawling view screens. The Butcher's Nails biting impotently at the corners of his conscious mind in pained frustration, fueling a red rage with no proper outlet in this clinical void war. Hands itching to draw the sword hanging at his waist, to kill, to cut, to exact some small measure of toll for this potent indignity.

Scarred lips drawn back in a brutal snarl revealing clenched teeth, ticks of violent barely restrained fury written clear across a bearded face as he rounded on the sweating ashen figure cowering in the elaborate seat situated behind his post.

"Shipmaster, can we not move!? They're tearing us ragged out there!"

"Negative, Captain!" The all too mortal Lord of the Imperial Frigate returned in a voice that despite his appearance bore a commendable measure of composure, especially for a man in his current position.

Pinned between hostile alien attackers and the often volatile temperament the Astartes of his Master's Legion were so well known for, he instinctively sought solace in percentages and situational calculation. Collated through the series of inload shunts and sensory data feeds linking him to the vessel he commanded through the string of banded cortical implants that bound him to his seat of office in mind and body.

In the midst of such a state, he all but _was_ the _Daggerline_. Able to access various status updates filtering in throughout length of the grand vessel by thought and will alone, from panicked word of hull breaches to the clipped advisories of Armsmen attempting to school the Frigate's crew to order as they themselves battled their all too mortal anxieties.

In the midst of such a state, he was also well aware of the damage the thrice-accursed Eldar were inflicting across his noble charge. He knew better than any soul possibly could, cold terror pooling in his gut as fingers dug deep into the thin cushioning of his hand rests with every new line of data...

"The Xenos managed to catch us during a routine pre-jump maintenance cycle, our Plasma Drives ritually stilled to better effect repairs. We're fortunate we were even able to raise Voids to crucial systems as swiftly as we did."

For what little good they provided, the ship might as well have been pinned in place accepting those testing blows to its defenses with impotent reluctance that sent multi-hued aurora crackling across its hull.

An ignoble death by a thousand wounding cuts rather than a clean decapitating strike, in truth little comfort. Though thankfully the augurs seemed to be calibrating more and more effectively the longer the conflict persisted, one of enemy vessels coming apart under the Frigate's laser batteries, wispy shields rupturing with a last pale gasp...but not enough, not nearly enough for Varren's liking.

"Magos Majoris Malach-Rho regretfully reports that it will be a matter of several minutes before himself and his cadre will be able to stoke the Spirit's of the ship's reactors to anything remotely approaching even sub-optimal function. More so in the midst of this persisting strain...!?"

His report, and his consciousness, interrupted abruptly by another of the swiftly recurring stress tremor's that thundered through the _Daggerline's_ frame, throwing several alarmed mortals from their feet to land painfully across metal decking or against the edges of crew stations. The Shipmaster releasing a long drawn out wail as his head collided badly against his throne's headrest, tearing free several cables from their implant nodes in a spray of sparks and milky grey fluid.

"Rear-Void Shields holding at fifty-six percent efficiency and dropping, Lord!" One of the deck officers, a woman by the scent, called forth from the pit below. Her forehead opened by a long gash raw and bleeding and her voice pained.

Still, she'd been one of those rare few that had resolutely kept their senses despite the mayhem of injured parties and harried medicae staff disconnecting the Shipmaster from his throne, herself dragging a slumped body free of its station and taking place at the post.

"Faltering extension fields reported along aft decks six through eight! Generators ill responsive to ministration! Power surges afflicting response protocols, reaffirming now!"

"Throne curse it all, we might not have minutes! Give me something to work with, _anything_!" The World Eater spat, thrusting a mailed finger towards the frigate's oculus view screen. A portal that had only moments before contained naught but distant stars, the empty void, and a fair few scattered support craft clinging to larger vessels as parasitic organisms might a great ocean predator, though now bore quite a different picture entirely.

One of streaking las-beams, short lived detonations from hull impacts guttering into the expanse, and slithering void reavers currently in the process of scouring the storied frigate piece by bloody piece.

"Where is the rest of the Expedition Fleet!?" Varren searched the hololithic display intently, dark eyes narrowing with fresh vitriol, "Where is our support!? Terra curse it, where are the damned Word Bearers!?"

"Contact with _Steadfast_ and _Ager Velis_ established! Both moving to support though facing stiff enemy resistance upon approach!" Another shrill human tone shouted from his right, his Lyman's ear filtering out the details from the wash of background havoc. Several lights coming to life across the engagement zone, a handful of blue lights amidst a seething swarm of red, all moving to isolate the _Daggerline_. "Transmission from the _Righteous Brand!_ Reports limited engagement with hostile contacts!"

"Then why aren't they moving to support as well!?" Varren seethed, uncaring of the fumbling reply as he looked to stabbing blue beacon representing the XVIIth Legion Cruiser _Righteous Brand_. That which should've been the closest to it's World Eater kindred, eager to offer aid, and yet to his fierce disbelief when the ship's engines sprang to vibrant life... "Are they... _fleeing_!?"

"Chaplain Viridis is still adrift the void, Captain! His Thunderhawk unaccounted for after the attack commenced! Our counterparts are reluctant to commit further to the zone of engagement, lest they endanger him unduly!"

True enough, rather than turn and move into position to assist it's fellow Imperial vessel the _Righteous Brand_ instead seemed reluctant, moving further and further upon it's own course as though seeking to evade the Eldar corsairs. Leaving their cousins to hunt alone at the mercy of Alien pulsar lasers.

Against his desire towards calm, Varren felt his gauntlets digging deep into the handrails, metal rending under unforgiving ceramite. Frankly if he survived this debacle, _he'd_ endanger the Chaplain and the rest of Lorgar's cowardly ilk if they persisted as such.

Honestly, what were those overzealous fools...!?

Another blistering impact setting lumen globes across the bridge flickering in streamers of crackling sparks and groaning metal composites, stealing away what violent imaginings he might've held for the XVIIth, at least for the moment.

A cavalcade of pained screams ripped from haggard throats, fresh alarms sounding across the strategium. The scent of mortal fear spiced adrenaline, blood iron, and animal terror pervasive on his tongue as for but a moment the Captain lost himself amidst the sea of incoming information. Transhuman mind racing as it had been designed to, eliminating distraction, focusing only on the path to victory or at least tactical equivalency...

"Fires detected in compartments nineteen through twenty-one! Containment teams on route to...!"

 _"Steadfast_ experiencing cascading engine failures across...no, no what are you saying? Internal, that can't...!? Confirm this, damn you...!?"

"...crews of _Ager Velis_ reporting sudden stalls across tertiary and aft gunnery decks, expected lull to reduce firing screen by twenty-three point zero two...!"

"Auspex array three has sustained glancing damaged, reads as inoperable! Compensating now...!"

"...prow facing operational void coverage at sixty-seven percent and dropping! Rear shields compromised, request redirect of covering interdiction salvos as teams attempt to restore...?!" The woman from before, Varren focusing his attentions acutely. Noting uptick in frustration and anxiety present in her tone. "Minor hull breaches reported on decks fifteen and...and Captain, sir! Xenos hostiles confirmed aboard ship!..."

There it was, clarity amidst the madness as the twin beats of his hearts thundered in the World Eater chest in defiance of the Nail's bitter song. The Eldar sought to take his vessel out from under him, coming aboard personally where there ships had as yet failed to see the deed done.

No doubt seeing easy prey, groggy and offset.

Yet despite not being a monster of the void like the Gloriana-class _Conqueror,_ an apex predator capable of dispatching whole fleets single handed if required. The _Daggerline_ was still a vessel of the XIIth Legion as much as the flagship was, still bound by honor to all that represented.

"Finally, an enemy we can fight properly." The Captain murmured, fingers tightening on the grip of his sword.

Fingers ticking to the beat of the pain engines in his skull, a curse he suppressed with the stern will and martial discipline in which he'd prided himself...

"Tactical, update hololithic display in second by second pulses to compensate for the speed of enemy craft!" He announced loudly, booming voice easily carrying over the cacophony of the Strategium and this conflict's maestros. Dozens leaping to his command, eager to be given a sense of direction to guide their efforts. A task to spend themselves upon in defiance of the enemy, Servitors seething acknowledgments through slack jaws.

Mortal though they might be, they still served the Legion. Many having adopted its character, at least in some respects.

"Gunnery, fix primary targets by range with priority given to largest profiles! Blood of the Primarchs, give the crews something they can hit! See if we can't warn off any more unwanted guests in the offing!"

"Aye, sir! Calibrating now!"

"Tactical adjustments made, standing by!"

"Excellent! Lock the ship down! Voxmaster, send word to my men. All active squads are to rendezvous with and assist the Armsmen in their efforts to contain the situation as per tactical inload. And inform their Sergeants to focus and reign in their urges, damn them, or they'll be answering to me directly!"

He didn't bother waiting for the sallow faced mortal's stammering affirmative, dark murderous eyes cast beyond the occulus towards a weaving enemy corsair bleeding atmosphere from wounds inflicted by a glancing hit. Its bisected structure tearing itself apart under its own speed, consigning it's crew to the potent violence of raw unhampered vacuum.

"So, the knife-eared bastards wish to challenge the Eaters of Worlds blade to blade, eh? Fine then, let them come! We'll enjoy chewing them up spitting what's left back out for the void to swallow. Open shipwide channels!"

 _"Compliance..."_ A nearby servitor intoned blandly amidst vapid cheers of assent, the vox giving off a warbling three-tone shriek. Standard practice preceding every Captain's address or emergency broadcast, this to be treated purely as the former.

"Crew of the frigate, _Daggerline_ , This is Captain Macer Varren of the XIIth Legiones Astartes." He directed his address aloud into the nearest vox-horn, broadcasting his barely restrained anticipation to the thousands of frantic serfs, terrified ratings, and a whole host of officers and soldiers that made up the Frigate's compliment.

Men and women sworn to his command. Garnered from years traversing the Great Crusade, coward strays and sworn heroes alike...

"All hands to your stations. Prepare to repel boarders. Make the Xenos pay in blood for every step, Brothers! For Terra! _For the Emperor_!"

* * *

 **-II-**

 **(XIIth Legiones Astartes Frigate "** ** _Daggerline_** **", 004.M31 Approx. - Periphery Access Corridors - Lower Crew Decks)**

"For the Emperor, _feh_...right." Cardin grumbled with a shake of his helmeted head as he glanced back at the buzzing vox-horn, wishing he could spit to clear the sour-sweet tang of sweat and cheap stimms from dry lips.

Inwardly regretting the drunken decision to sign what little freedom he had among the press-gangs away to the Frigate's mortal defenders. Cursing the aliens that they chose his shift, _his_ section precinct of all places, to make themselves known and a nuisance. Cursing the air, hot and stifling as it was and circulating far too slowly for comfort, cooking him alive in his fibre-weave hardsuit.

"Really'd be great if _He_ were here right about now, I bet. Show em' how humanity deals with up jumped Xenos freaks..."

Brave words to hide the nagging doubts creeping into his gut, imagination running wild of stories filtered in by Imperial Army types marching in the wake of the Astartes. Wild tales describing monsters that drained the thoughts from peoples heads from wriggling proboscis.

Things with too many mouths skinning and devouring their prey while it still lived. Things that might've appeared almost human but simply weren't...things like the Faunus back on Remnant, like the Eldar he was currently jogging towards...at the front of the formation no less.

'Eldar', he'd heard plenty about them over the years from the mouths of drunken starfarers and soldiery both.

How they were supposed to be cowards that ran from a proper fight, inferior in the face of humanity's great expansion. But they'd caught them off guard today hadn't they? The alien menace was here on board the ship in the here and now, fighting and killing aplenty by what word filtered through on the ship-wide channel.

That didn't sound right, not matching up at all. Xenos weren't supposed to stand up and fight...

"Fugging hells, I signed up meaning to avoid this sort've thing." He breathed, gripping the compact stub-gun he bore tighter to his chest carapace. The weapon one of the standard issue, pump-action models designed for shipboard use.

Fingering the trigger nervously as they rounded corner after corner, expecting at each to meet an inhuman face.

A lifetime aboard the dingy Frigate sparing him not an inch from the sudden oppressiveness of the close confines tinted red by emergency lumens, the echoing clamor of boots thudding on plasteel ringing for several meters outwards in every conceivable direction. Challenging the ever-present murmur of vast power plants, micro-vibrations thrumming in time with his pulse, the _Daggerline's_ own heartbeat.

Never so noticeable now that it thrashed and skipped in the midst of combat, not for years, not since he'd first...

 _"Rrgh..._ Leave the freaks to the bloody Legion, the Primarch, the fugging Emperor... _anybody_ else! Why me?"

That was what they were for, wasn't it? The Astartes, the Primarchs, even the Warmaster...fighting humanity's wars, winning the wider Galaxy back for normal people like him?

"Oi! Stow the chatter, Winchester!" Armswoman Second-Class Coco Adel chided playfully with just a hint of iron from just behind the brutish enforcer.

The svelte young Officer gingerly thumbing the Dust charm remnant jangling from a brass chain looped about her styled webbing for good fortune, moving to check the ammo feeds to the heavy rotor cannon she bore with enough enthusiasm to snatch her comrades' fractured attentions. A tried and true 'deck cleaner', designed to throw enough raw firepower to see most any foe cleared in such confines, and she handled the unwieldy weight with practiced ease.

That worrisome fact alongside a friendly, if rather firm, hand clapping the gormless rookie's ass into high gear as it had many other posteriors before over the years since she'd crawled her way out of the Cisterns herself and finally caught the eye of someone important. That familiar habit sending up fits of welcome laughter across the line as the response team advanced down the tight causeway.

Many of them, her included, still somewhat caught in the midst of realizing this wasn't just another drill but the real thing. Most having been snatched up for size, aggression, or brains, and posted like Cardin to keep the peace in the lower decks.

Expected to practice formation when required, comport themselves to shipwide regulation, and to fight in the ship's defense when needs called upon.

Throne of Terra, there was to be fighting, _real_ fighting, but with the vox scattered and suffering in the midst of some strange interference it was impossible to tell exactly what she and her squad-mates were stepping into. Only that whatever it was, it wasn't seemingly going well for their side by all indications.

By the grace of Terra, the Xenos had been stalled well before breaching anywhere near the Enginarium or any other essential locales, if at a hefty cost. Showing no signs of giving up for whatever ineffable reason she couldn't fathom.

Still one had to diffuse the tension somehow, and if the Astartes were too busy entertaining themselves elsewhere...

"And yes, it'd be downright splendid if the Big Man on Terra himself were aboard. Sadly it's not to be, important Imperial business and all." A reassuring smirk she knew to be hidden beneath the tinted visor of her sealed voidsuit tugging at her lips. So she used her words instead, with all the attitude her reputation amidst the rank and file afforded. Her lack of candor popular with the Remnant-born recruits, what few she had. "Luckily the _Daggerline's_ got fine Armsmen and women like us to help take out the trash, get her feeling all pretty again. Best not keep the old girl waiting, shall we?"

" _Er_...ah Aye, Ma'am!" Cardin chorused along with almost a almost a dozen others of varying confidence, picking up his pace to stay ahead of the throng milling at his back. At the head, the most dangerous part of the formation save the rear reserved for the recruits...or the fodder he tried not to think, failing. Weapon raised with finger tempted to feather the trigger at every shifting shadow they passed, instinct barely restrained by regulation and training yet warring with the notion of _something_ watching.

"Surveyor detecting activity at extreme range, inconclusive!" One of the others chimed up from nearer the rear, a handheld device beeping and buzzing in one hand while carting around a serrated boarding ax in the other. Stubber slung over his shoulder forgotten or simply ignored in favor of a more intimate weapon, Legion sensibilities having obviously cut deep in him...maybe too deep. "Heat signs, flickers of movement, only the slightest traces., Ma'am. Hard to decipher what with the interference, but they look to be some of ours!"

"And knowing our luck today, they could probably use a helping hand or ten." Coco said, leveling an appreciative nod towards the signalman. "Fine looking out, Fox. Hustle, people!"

Then they were running, on the move again through halls pulsing with light the same shade as arterial spray congealed in the sands. More hustle, always more damned hustle.

 _'Keep moving forward, ever forward'_...

Cardin couldn't rightly where he'd first heard the words. Some quote in passing no doubt, dating from days spent back on Remnant, back in Vale. From a time before the Legion and all that came with them, or maybe after during those first rough days he hardly remembered.

 _'Keep moving forward...'_

Hardly unique, he'd found out later. Just his forgotten backwater home's spin on a painfully common sentiment. One that could be found in some shape or form across the Imperium's vast holdings. In it's armies, in its ideals, in its people...an ideal to take them to the stars, towards their birthright!

"That's right, Xenos! It's ours!" He murmured fiercely in time with exerted breaths, breaking the silence that had risen up between the squad. Strain pulling each Voidsman taut like coiled twine, near ready to snap at a moment's notice. "This is our galaxy, Freaks! Ours, you lot had your chance!"

It was the truth, everything the Emperor had ever promised. Yet, he couldn't shake the feeling something was wrong. Heart thundering in his chest, beyond anything nerves or stimms should've explained. Some animal inkling in his hind-brain he simply couldn't understand made all the worse by the occasional burst of static trickling from the vox-link. Sounds that could've been nothing but decaying air for all he knew, or cries for help, and sights that had him leaping at damn near everything.

An imagined flicker of motion here at the corner of his vision, a trick of the light exacerbated by his visor there that set the hairs on the back of his neck on end. Movement, a shadow...but no, when he jerked his head to catch a glimpse, nothing. Nothing but grunts from his comrades, even Adel who'd grown rather more serious the longer they went.

Frankly in Cardin's mind it was infuriating, made all the more so for the lack of any tangible signs of life present in this section of the ship.

Where were the Ratings and deck hands that should've been present? Ants in a hive, scurrying about and going out of their way to somehow get even _more_ in the way then before? Not all of them could be off hiding like rats in the corners, _someone_ had to be handling _something_ even within the contested sections of the ship. Someone to run off, boss about with his superior status.

A sense of normalcy amidst the panic, something to latch onto beyond footsteps and the incessant chiming of the hand-held device growing steadily more and more insistent by the second. Not to mention more and more annoying.

"Where are they?" He didn't bother with keeping his voice down, discipline be damned, enduring the sharp jab of a rifle butte between his shoulder blades courtesy of his cursing Squad Leader. " _Dammit_! Where the fug are the bastards!?"

"Few meters, next left." Fox supplied generously in a voice touched by tension, motioning towards an interceding gangway situated just ahead of the Squad. "Faint heat signatures, two, maybe three. Consistent with base human."

"Two or three?" Cardin said in confused reply, gripping his autogun all the tighter to direct his irritation at the other Voidsman's shrug. "What happened to the others, then?"

"Excellent question, no hails on the vox." Coco spoke up, silently directing the rest of the squad as her rookie quailed. "Seeing as your so curious, and that idiotic outburst of yours has likely given the game away to anything nearby, you've volunteered to go check it out. Porfirio, go with him. Eyes open, last we checked this section was held."

What didn't need to be said was that last anyone had checked was almost half an hour before, and a lot could change in that time. Some had claimed Vale had fallen in little more than that, overwhelmed by the sheer withering momentum of a World Eater's assault.

...S _moke hot on the air, the heat cooking off Dust emplacements set in homes, fires spreading far and wide. He remembered hiding under in an overturned car, waiting for the white and blue Monsters to pass him by..._

Mouthing an obscenity detailing exactly what the haughty woman with the big gun could be doing with that cheeky mouth of hers, the armsman sidled in a half crouch down the corridor as silently as his wide frame allowed, compact rifle held close and low to the ground ready to rise at a moment's notice. The leaner Porfirio following up along the opposite wall in support, adjusting the heft of a heavy auto pistol in a tight fisted grip while spinning a crackling stun baton in preparatory arcs.

"Not hearing anything." He grunted warily, Cardin forced to agree while sidling up to the corner in question, the the other soul taking position alongside him. The man intoning a whispered mantra under his breath like a prayer, something having to do with the Emperor or some such that made the Remnant-born's eyebrows rise in mocking disbelief.

Unfortunately the instinctive barb in comment died on his tongue, instead urging the other man down the end of the sparse corridor. Following after waiting the customary few heartbeats to make certain his fellow armsman hadn't been riddled to pieces by strange alien weaponry, both moving cautiously towards what looked to be armored shapes leaning against the passageway's support gantries on watch if not exactly on alert.

A pair of them, standing with guns lowered and helms turned outward down the passage.

The space definitely displayed signs of a rather severe firefight, no doubts about that. Heat scoring from lasguns striped the hull alongside long gouges carved across solid plasteel decking, triangular projectiles of a sort still present in some lodged to the knuckle.

And then of course the blood and bodies, almost a dozen dragged to sit or lay along the sides of the corridor so as not to choke the lane in the eventuality of a retreat. Their armour sporting the same tears as the wall only far more pronounced when shown in meat and gristle, or otherwise gutted like fish from flawlessly precise disemboweling strokes from a blade in a manner utterly foreign to the World Eater's butchery he was used to.

"...support, who's in charge...?" Porfirio was mouthing off like a damned fool, calling out to the Armsmen still standing upon his approach. Having identified himself, and no response.

If it'd been him being hailed, Cardin wasn't certain he'd have not spun round and blasted the poor fugger, friendly or otherwise. Especially if he'd just spent who knew how long with most of his friends with only one other poor meat bag for company.

Something was wrong, _very_ wrong. That prickling feeling nagging at his neck again, sending a cold shiver rippling down his spine the moment his comrade got close enough to reach out.

"Ay, Mate? It's alright, we've got y... _agh_!?"

Cardin's head snapped round, catching sight of Porfirio scrambling backwards with a cry of shrill alarm, sparking baton clattering to the deck from quivering fingers.

The Voidsman he'd been so engrossed in checking up on sagging further down the gantry way until halting with a jerking shudder, revealing the gloved hands secured to his weapon by a fine length of filament wire. A similar length of cord coiled securely about the rather dead Armsman's neck seals binding the poor unfortunate to the gantry's frame to keep him upright, or the illusion of it anyway.

...All the better to distract from the sinuous silhouette of formfitting plates of cold ochre gray fluttering into being beside him...

A form so very similar and yet so impossibly far from human birthed from shadow and nothingness, as tall as Cardin was if not nearly so wide or encumbered by awkward mass. Moving with such lithe delicacy and speed that it took the astonished human's mind several neural beats to realize the being had moved at all. His senses just catching the impression of breasts and chiseled feminine curves topped with a gleaming gem, of eerily long delicate limbs casting aside a rippling mantle of shimmering nothingness almost dismissively.

Fingers entwined almost adoringly about the intricately shaped bone hilt of a slender curved sabre, polished to a mirror sheen blurred with the inner illumination of a nigh silent power-field and studded with fine gems.

"B-By the grace God-Emperor, what hap...!?" The young Armsman, too caught up in the midst of horror at the grisly scene, never saw the stroke that neatly skived him from collar to groin. Parting void sealed hard weave like a hot knife through paper flimsy, parsing skin and muscle, sectioning bone and sinew, all with chilling effortless ease.

So fast not even Cardin himself had seen it move, and he'd _been_ watching. Almost like watching one of the Astartes move and do battle, but different. More fluid, more...simply _more._

Both halves of the unfortunate victim stood neatly for a heartbeat afterwards...two, his helm drooping as though in disbelief, and then came the blood in a rush...so much _red_. A severed heartbeat painting the floors, the walls, his hapless comrade's visor, all of it with speckled arterial matter. The son of Remnant forced back a step in utter surprise, disbelief warring with fear warring with hatred warring with sheer animal instincts of flight and fight...

A veritable fountain of what used to be Voidsman Minoris Nolan Porfirio staining Cardin's pale grey suit ruddy crimson. His killer sweeping what sizzling remnants remained glued to the blade's edge with a deft flick of the wrist that turned into a lazy spin. Her profile utterly untouched by the abattoir she'd made of the passage, not a speck or stain having graced her... _it_.

Bareheaded the creature regarded at him, fathomless almond-shaped dark eyes brimming with cold dispassion and a tick of sharp features and tapered ears.

 _'Xenos...Eldar_...'

Exactly as the drunken stories and crass recollections had painted, she... _it_ did appear almost human at a glance. Almost.

Unblemished features pale as marble and too sculpted to hint at anything wholly natural even as they curled into a sneer. Touched by an arrogance that was almost reptilian in bearing a fluidity, and purpose from even the slightest movements in her posture to the gentle rustle of platinum blonde locks gathered back into a tight plait.

Beautiful, statuesque, _different_ and all the more repulsive for it...a blonde, why did it have to be a blonde? That Xiao Long breeder's face of all things coming to mind, jaw twitching in spastic recollection of embarrassment, of helplessness...much like this moment, only...

 ** _"Mael dannan, Mon-keigh."_** It addressed Cardin, dared address _him_ specifically, with its lilting alien tongue in an accent ringing with an almost melodic cadence. The sound soothing like velvet but hard as a hay maker to the ears all at once, so strange, so...so... ** _"Ah leiaf, dyna'r twyll_. Soooo fragile, soooo small..."**

The jarring shift to Low Gothic was far from natural even if in a way it had never sounded quite as lovely, the intonation strained as though the Corsair was physical strain to speak the words it wished to convey.

'Small'?...Cardin Winchester had never ever in his roughly eighteen years of life been called anything even close to 'Small'. Yet this foul Xenos, this alien _freak,_ thought it could taunt him unanswered!? Belittle a human being after killing his fellows, defiling his home and galaxy with its disgusting presence!? The gall, the assumption, the sheer nerve...!

He needed to say something, _anything_! But he couldn't, his mouth wouldnt work right. His tongue feeling too large, too dry...

That frustration and rising indignation, more than anything else, prompted his quivering muscles to flex and stiffen into reluctant action. Gun rising in unsteady hands shaking as though in withdrawal, aimed roughly between the unimpressed Murderess' eyes. A rather disturbingly human expression, he realized with a flicker of hesitation mixed with bile...

 **"You hesitate, _Mon-Keigh?"_** She... _it_ crooned softly, the curious words whisper sweet as it sent a chill down the armsman's spine. **"Act and die, flee and die...** _ **Eadar en dorcha.**_ **Poor choices.** **"**

Senses vaguely registering the hissing _*crack*_ of stubber fire and frantic orders echoing from back in the direction he had come, Adel's snarling voice punctuated by the booming rapport of her shotgun discharging. A handful more dark armoured bodies having cast off their own disorienting cloaks and fallen upon the squad in earnest ambush, wielding curved blades much as their Mistress sported or otherwise hefting fluted rifles that seemed almost too fragile to be effective.

An assumption disproved in earnest a moment later, the bladed projectiles it spat cutting an Armswoman, Zedong he thought, to visceral ribbons draped across the bulkheads before she'd even had time to scream let alone bring her weapon up. Ended in moments.

Brooding Fox howled though, and howled loud, falling away from another in turn. Hard-suit visor sheared laterally from what had been meant as a decapitating stroke narrowly avoided by only the barest margins if not wholly successful, blood streaming from where his eyes should've been. Ax flailing blindly in an attempt to ward off his attacker before a backhanded pommel stoved in his helm and saw him to the ground, unmoving.

Coco screaming obscenities, seeing her comrade's plight, intervened before the Xenos could finish him off for certain. A flurry of hard rounds sweeping against the Eldar's stomach and groin effectively erasing everything below the waist and more besides, the cannon chugging a few more rounds into the twitching Corsair in a display of brutal overkill for good measure...but it wouldn't be enough.

Such an act only serving to hack off the handful remaining and slaughtering, half the squad already butchered meat and those still standing hard pressed and spread out, Coco unable to bring her _Deck Cleaner_ to full effectiveness without chewing apart most of her remaining squad in the bargain. A cost she was unwilling to pay, it appeared...

Cardin knew he should've had the cannon, he wouldn't have hesitated to clear the deck...not like he was now...he would've...he could've even now...

 **"Foolish** **!"** The female in front of him seethed, anger clearly coloring her expression now. Anger and what almost might have been exasperation on a human face while it toed at Porfirio's remains. **"One would think you might be grateful! That we might spare some from witnessing your own blundering descent, a mercy...!"**

Incomprehensible babbling aside, a moment's glance back towards her rotating blade all Cardin needed to confirm what raw instinct was screaming in his hind brain, that they were going to die. But he was armed wasn't he? He could fight, prove he was the superior being, that he had earned his right to the galaxy at large!

If some up-jumped curve like Adel could kill one of them, then he most certainly could! What did it matter that the Legion had denied him so long ago, that he hadn't made the cut?

The World Eaters had seen his worth regardless had they not? Invested time and resources in his body, making it strong and fit so as better do their will...their will such as being here while they fought with abandon elsewhere leaving him alone when he truly needed them.

Firing his weapon at the enemy of his species...pulling the trigger and watching this foul _thing_ fall like his Ancestors had to the animals back in the days of the Faunus Wars...

 **"That even one of the Aeldari must fall in this...despicable. _Idain Ulthran, garoth fhirin_!" **It wasn't talking to him, merely talking _at_ him. This was his opportunity, his chance to...to... **"I wonder, will the universe remember our sacrifice when the great effort is done? Will it remember yours, _Mon-keigh_? I doubt it."**

He didn't answer of course, already in the midst of turning on his heels. Boots skidding and struggling to catch purchase upon metal decking made slick with Porfirio's steaming offal and balance ruined by chemical disparity. Almost as if his fallen comrade was seeking to pull him back, to force him to attempt to exact vengeance through some spiteful miracle courtesy of his beloved 'God-Emperor'.

All thought of fighting this Xenos monster forgotten in the simple pursuit of flight. One step...five steps...mere feet from the imagined safety of numbers or perhaps escape in the confusion...?

 **"This one will serve, yes?"**

Feeling a modest glimmer of hope start to build across his features at the very thought, he strove even faster driven by the notion of continued survival against the odds. That last tangible, all too human, emotion lingering a few moment's more as mono-edged wraithbone punched through the back of his suit's helm perforating vertebrae and severing the jugular cleanly with a stroke in a wet spray that streaked across his visor and filled his throat in warmth.

A cut so precise and swift that the young man was even still conscious for the brief heartbeats it took for him to crumple across the decking with hand outstretched, feeling nothing below the neck but numb phantom sensations. Eyes wide and staring as the Eldar maiden stepped lightly over him, ceasing as something caught hold of its interest.

A glittering orange crystal charm tied about his wrist from a length of cord, a trophy claimed with a quick yank and a purr of intrigue. It's owner unable to make a noise in protest as his last link to a forgotten home was stolen away forever. Other boot falls accompaniedin its silent wake, more than their should be...no the Eldar hadn't made a sound in its motion...why was that...a gloved hand reaching towards him...?

His last coherent thought, a petulant lament espousing a bitter distaste for the blondes in his life...and then Cardin Winchester, Armsman Minoris Third-Class and scion of Remnant, knew nothing more at all...

* * *

 ** _\- Log Terminated -_**

* * *

 ** _A/N: Man this took awhile, (Work & Life. gotta eat after all) and was actually going to be quite a bit longer with a look in at Yang and such but decided this would be more a setting the scene chapter for this little arc while I work stuff around rather than try and cram it all in and delay this any further._**

 ** _Drew on a lot of inspiration for Varren (And yes, he's the Errant from Canon) in the bridge bit, throwing out orders and generally wanting a piece of the Eldar._** _ **The guy is controlled for a World Eater, but a World Eater nonetheless.**_

 _ **As for the latter bit, yes Cardin is very dead, bravado failing in the face of the Xenos. His squadmates took a beating too, a lot of them drawn from some of the other teams in RWBY. Coco and Fox from CVFY, Nathan Porfirio and May Zedong from BRNZ, not a good day for Remnant survivors overall.**_

 _ **Anyway in other news I've been fumbling around ideas for some other purely Warhammer stuff in conjunction with this and others. Little shorts or blurbs really but something I'd like to try my hand at.**_

 _ **For this story I'll keep on chugging along and any and all constructive feedback is very much appreciated along with the support. - Mojo**_


	7. Chapter 7

_**(Disclaimer: I don't claim to own RWBY or Warhammer, those strictly fall under the purview of Roosterteeth and Games Workshop. This is just a passion project.)**_

* * *

 **\- Remnants of Remnant -**

* * *

 ** _Battle for the Daggerline_**

* * *

 _ **"There is still time to change the course of history."**_

\- Talyesin Fharenal, Autarch of Craftworld Saim-Hann

* * *

 **-I-**

How long? This Viridis had to ponder in the morass of impotence and fury suffusing his being and poisoning the spirit within.

How long since the last moment in which he had experienced firsthand such utter lack of control, such dereliction over the skeins of fate surrounding him? To be caught so offhand by the nature of ongoing events that it was all he could do not to rail and curse against the whims of destiny.

To question, nay even doubt the certainty of that most pernicious providence inherent to the Four...

Not since the Ultramar's self-righteous curs and their accursed Patriarch had stood intractable in ceramite of blue and gold as the ashes of once perfect Monarchia, burned by fire cast from the heavens they'd once praised, painted the whole of an Adeptus Astartes Legion in the black shroud of shame. Transhuman warriors in their thousands humbled by a single thought cast by one they'd once considered nothing short of Divine.

Thousands forced to watch their once-mighty Father kneel in the dust before his own Maker and be reprimanded, broken and belittled in the sight of his sons...

This Viridis had witnessed firsthand with his own eyes, unable to gaze upon the features of He who would name Himself Emperor of all Mankind for the blinding halo of golden light that suffused His very being. Yet he had seen enough that day to know he would never expunge it from his mind, nor should he. Staring on in horror as Lorgar Aurellian, the Urizen, Bearer of the Word, Son of the Emperor and Primarch of the XVIIth Legion wept for adoration and worship denied. Watching the cold calculated eyes of Roboute Guilliman's patrician features gaze upon his Brother and oversee the spiritual castration of a host not unlike his own Ultramarines.

All in the name of the accursed irony that was 'Imperial Truth'.

Yes, yes not since Monarchia had the Chaplain experienced such a twist of fate.

Not since the Primarch had returned from his Blessed Pilgrimage, sharing what he had learned of the true gods residing within the Warp with those he could trust to ensure it was passed down through the ranks. Such had become moments of rarity, overshadowed in the joyful renewal of purpose, the recognition of his Lord, the discovery of that most curious of worlds and the secrets dwelling upon it.

Fate had been his to shape as he willed it...and yet here he, Viridis, Chaplain of the Shattered Moon and Bearer of the True Word of Creation, drifted helplessly in the face chance as he watched those who by all rights should have been expunged from the galaxy millennia before threaten to unravel all he was attempting.

The Eldar...thrice damned Xenos that dared to believe such relics could toy with Fate and bend it to their whims. That they were succeeding, even as he watched from the cockpit of his transport while blade-like ships flitted like gnats across the adamantium skin of the _Daggerline's_ hull, left him seething.

Ignorant of the steady alerts pulsing across the ship's control panel in the otherwise abject darkness.

Evidence of the engine failure suffered in the wake of a near collision with one of the Xenos vessels, the damage severe enough to leave them adrift in the sea of stars, vulnerable. The Chaplain forced to order the cessation of all but the most elementary life support systems in order to prevent the Xenos taking advantage, to play their games and threaten his personage.

Him, the Lord of the Shattered Moon, he who's voice had orated the death and compliance of more worlds than most would ever see...

"How dare you?" He breathed in sibilant whisper, the tang of acid biting at his tongue as another alien vessel shattered upon the firmament. "That wretched mongrels, whose only glory is long since passed and denied with every breath, that they would bear hubris enough to challenge the machinations of Fate? As if your meaningless deaths change anything, anything at all."

"M-My Lord Apostle?" His new rank, spoken in the shaky stuttering of terror.

It took all of his considerable self-control -coupled with mental entreaty to the Powers that were- for him not to kill the cowering cult retainer where he stood in that moment of interruption. The balding wretch responsible for vox operation dropping to a knee as though to conceal his trembling beneath a void hardened suit of shapeless fabrics. A necessity lest he perish from exposure as two of his fellows had already in the initial catastrophe, their chilled blood used in ritual to beseech the Powers for their protection and beneficence...

There the glorified serf knelt straight backed as far as his hunched frame would allow, as though in ignorance of the fact that his master could smell his fear and rapture thick in the sweat permeating the cheap material, see the pallid eyes shot thick with cataracts through the suit's visor as clearly as if it were cast in daylight, hear the thunderous beats of an ailing heart thick and clotting in a manner that would doubtless see the mortal dead in months without any intervention on his part.

He was as nothing, his fears were as nothing and despite it all the limb gifted to him for his faith still twitched with noisome clicks all its own. Those silver-wrought symbols adorning the black metal writhing across its surface freely in symbiotic display of its host's shared emotions.

The presence bound within, some bygone remnant of a misguided convert plucked from a world of the same name reshaped to its essence into something more. Kept plied and dormant during his foray among the bloodied sons of the XIIth and their petty lusts. Bleeding _his/its_ unsubtle wants and desires across the surface of Viridis' consciousness on a level deeper than intimacy. A hunger not his own yet intrinsically bound to him nonetheless in cackling echoes, suppressed by force of personality.

His will paramount as in all things must, as in he, as must humanity if it were ever to achieve the ascension it must pursue. So he denied it, for the moment...

"How long until rescue sorties are dispatched from the _Righteous Brand_?" He said with voice composed, a soft timbre showing nothing of the true seething fury kept at bay.

"They...They won't be for some hours yet, Lord Apostle." The man said in weak reply, even dulled by the cold and the protective helm he wore his voice rankled on the ears. Chosen to accompany his Lord for his faith and expertise in other areas, then. A tool in the shape of a living breathing being. "Lord Captain Arshad offers sincerest apology for the delay, but with our...with your transport cast amidst debris and your signum beacon suffering under the effects of Xenos signal geists, he judges it more prudent to...!"

He faltered, Viridis realizing now that his hand had strayed to the man's lean shoulder. Metallic digits closing to nearly encompass the whole of the collarbone in a grip that was as steel. "Captain Arshad judges his actions more prudent? Above my orders then?" He asked, not needing the man's hasty nod to recognize the inherent caution in the actions of his subordinate.

Malik Arshad was a warrior of Colchis, raised high in the temple slum gangs and higher among Lorgar's Legion. Strong and diligent in application of his faith, as he must be to execute his duties as Captain of the Shattered Moon. Where Viridis was the confident guiding hand focused in matters of faith and spiritual idealization for the Chapter, Arshad was always to act his strong right fist in matters of martial readiness and morale. Warleader and Strategos both.

A mighty voice to guide their Brothers forward in battle and a trusted gauge of their temperaments in the long stretches between. The needed bridge between the often aloof position that a Chaplain -an Apostle- must maintain, and the common warrior brethren who's loyalty he must command and whose respect must remain inviolate without the sordid human elements.

A duty the Captain had done proudly for more than a decade, since the days after the discovery of the promised world and the death of his predecessor to the blessed creatures upon its surface. Utterly loyal to the Word, committed to the safety of his Spiritual Guide and the promises for which he offered. Useful traits in a subordinate to be certain, yet in excess could often lead to conflict in matters such as this where more decisive action was desired.

Such a fact Viridis himself would make quite clear upon his eventual return, for he would indeed survive this. The thought that the Powers would be so capricious as to guide him to such discoveries, offer such wonders only to deny him so cruelly after all he'd offered in their names...

"And what of the Lady Fall?"

He raised a carefully measured brow though kept his stare fixed on the conflict painting itself bloody across the void beyond, an inflection and choice not gone unnoticed by the cultist who didn't shy away. A speck of bravery then, it seemed? Most faltering at mere mention of the guest Viridis entertained at present, situated high in her lavish sanctum atop the spires of the venerable Strike Cruiser. A place of honour which should by rights have housed one of the Navis Nobilite's adepts seconded to the storied vessel, and had served thus before her arrival.

A courtesy the female had found great pleasure in flaunting as it so happened. Delighting as she had in the stammering excuses and bitter glowers she'd received even as the mutant wretch had been hauled from his chambers by gene-bulked brutes. The Chaplain almost smiled, recalling in detail the hateful glimmer in those burning brands upon his last audience with her.

A flicker of something not quite mortal in that appraising stare as she'd bowed and made obeisance to one who still held sway over her, despite her airs...but for how much longer? That he had to be cautious of, the will of the Powers a fickle thing as present circumstances dictated.

"She has been apprised of our untenable situation, I trust?"

"S-S-She has indeed! By her own word and the blessings of the Four, she awaits your signal, oh...oh great Lord." He groveled, almost stuttering through the title in a mix of terror and rapture both. To be close to one so high in the favor of the gods to whom he owed loyalty. Whose might flexed beneath the skin of this titan among lesser men. "She added...The Lady Fall made it clear you would ascertain the meaning of such. Quite insistent, she was, Sire."

"Of course, such is a cinder's nature after all. Guttering brightly until something sparks and the fires burn bright. Be they a world, a soul's faith, a mortal life. All blaze in this manner at their height, always with persistence." The minuscule human straightened up as much as his hunched back and Viridis' grasp would allow if with great discomfort, clearly confused at the directness of the words.

A straining heart skipping in beat for the thought that his Lord, a presence he'd been raised to regard as akin to a demigod, might be confiding in him. Addressing some words of aetheric wisdom.

Such arrogance, such presumption, excuses that mad the steady squeeze of metallic digits digging into the polymers of his environment suit all the sweeter as metal pierced flesh. The writhing sigils shifting in shade from silver to pulsing a lurid purple, dripping poisons corrosive and otherwise to the deck in hissing droplets and seared through the material to find host in the pale wrinkled flesh beneath.

Perhaps this once, just this one time though he knew it for a falsehood, he might indulge the cackling presence bound within _._ All in service to necessity, of course. Such distinction was important, that much of which he was certain. Still, he needn't gaze upon his handiwork.

Knowing well enough that where the ship and lifeless material suffered, the cultist's tender flesh would fare far worse. A corruption of veins spreading from the points of contact as toxin violated pores and filtered into vessel and arteries, violaceous in hue and spreading with unnatural speed spurred further by the frantic terror of that oh so pitiful organ beating time in a chest constricted.

Pale eyes bulging with shattering vessels weeping torment, jaw clenched so tightly that tongue was sliced through and teeth broken like stone gravel underfoot...the soul-blinding pain of a life devoured from the inside by warp-strengthened poison. And throughout it all the Chaplain remained silent. Steadfast, for this was his duty...his contribution. Such was how he had been conditioned, as had all those the Legion had acquired in their decades long campaign of secrecy. Entire worlds and cultures supplanted and shaped to the will of the Primarch and his closest few.

This life and all those like it raised as a tool for his Masters, an offering to Powers that governed an uncaring universe of bitter torments and brief savage delights.

Against such, this serf was as nothing. The piteous struggles echoing throughout the confines of the Thunderhawk colored wet by emotion. Those of holy rapture at this moment of sacrifice by which he thought himself blessed to receive...perhaps he even was?

Such emotion bleeding away as it so often did into fear as he grew to understand the scale of the truth facing him, that his existence was nothing more than the footnote underneath so much clamor and a minuscule one at that. Silenced just as swiftly as could his wizened animus crumble to the deck, unmoving but for phantom echos of the virulent poisons that had melted vessel and softened bone to pulp.

What energies his meager life might have still possessed cast out into the aether like a beacon, weak and fluttering if visible to those with the eyes to see. Much like those of his associate...her burning embers cast out in eagerness, searching for such a sign of his presence. But more would be needed to keep the ritual alight, thus it was a fortunate thing that several more expendable crew still lingered in their prayers, eager and willing for the chance to serve.

If he must signal for rescue like a common castaway, let at least the pyre burn hot.

Viridis' interests in the fresh corpse fading as the limb's did as the trembling ceased and the blessed signal bell run, his mind returning once more to the events surrounding him and the needs of the moment.

His pieces in play -both loyal and disloyal as if such a thing truly mattered- were in place. Plans set forth decades before by greater minds and greater beings coming slowly yet steadily towards a climax that would see a galaxy on fire and a false idol cast to ashes in its wake.

He smiled then much as the poor wretched thing that now occupied his mind had done and laughed at the bloodshed born of necessity. A baring himself before the gods truly and without deception or intent, thinking only of...

* * *

 **-II-**

"...Ruby!? _Ruby_!?..."

Again and again Yang called her sister's name desperately in mid-sprint, corridor after dank ringing corridor, winding causeway after blunted access tunnel all ringed arterial red in the dull pulsing illumination of alert klaxons.

Her efforts met with naught but echoing retorts and scandalized stares from crewman and ratings she promptly ignored with pointed indifference and the occasional elbow or fist for those too slow to clear a path. Most too focused on fearful flight or otherwise too wrapped up in their desperate duties to bother with trying to waylay a gene-whipped madwoman from sprinting headlong further into danger.

Dressed the distinct white and blue sectioned jerkin of a Legion Bondswoman she'd pulled on in haste, a short pit-blade strapped awkwardly at her hip clattering every which way with every step of her boots upon the metal decking.

Yang cursed up a storm under her breath as she jarred the weapon painfully against a side panel, the pommel thudding against muscle and bone. The force of it punching the air from her lungs like a vice and might have killed a lesser mortal outright. Still, Imperial gene-craft and a force beyond her understanding served to keep her moving with naught but a momentary golden flash, gritting teeth through a wash of pain that all too suddenly turned to warmth and energy bleeding through her burning limbs.

Her power, her gift, her Semblance for what it was worth...crudely suppressed, barely understood, and now awkwardly directed. It would needs be enough.

Even so, the simple act of breathing was becoming more and more difficult with every step. Fear and worry for what that could mean beginning to tug at her resolve, doubt seeding its roots deeper. Earlier reports of whole deck sections opened to the void echoing traitorously in her thoughts. Fears of suffocating alone and frightened in the bloody dark...of a light voice crying out for her aid as air was ripped from tiny lungs trying to scream...

Raw panic and need using the momentum and bulked muscle to press off passed moaning deckhands and fallen crew nursing broken bones or fallen friends. Her imperative to keep moving, always moving forward...a favorite saying of Remnant, of Taiyang Xiao Long's. Blonde hair like hers, a smile like Ruby's, and always so worried for his progeny even at the end...

* * *

 _"...Look after your Sister, go! I'll be right behind you, just keep Ruby safe!..."_

* * *

"E-Embarkation Deck, she said something about a shift but...but which one!?" She gasped between increasingly haggard breaths, head spinning and the alarms did little to assuage the pounding in her skull. Its pulse coupled with the vibrating hum of overtaxed engines in step with the steady staccato of impacts no doubt landing across suffering void shields. "Ruby!?"

How far had she run since staggering from her quarters? How many levels and sub-decks now? A handful? A dozen?

She'd found she'd lost count even before the central bulkheads had closed off, driving her cursing down disused paths and service lifts rarely ventured by anything more than the occasional rating or mind-wiped servitor meat.

All of them now choked up tight with fearful whimpering, steady orders, or offered prayers begging against the light of Imperial Truth and bitter reason. Really, what did she think she was accomplishing here? Wandering half lost with nothing more than a sword and not even a proper firearm, for Terra's sake?

Better to have remained in her quarters as her Lord Khalos had instructed and wait for the danger to pass. To have secured the Armourium with the other Serfs against intrusion, secure in the knowledge that the Astartes would face this threat and prevail with their usual blunt brutality, as only humanity's greatest weapons could.

She knew well enough from experience and reason to see that the Legion had been bloodied, yes, but beaten? Far from it. Surprise attack or not, there was still a whole fleet of warships idling out in the void. The bulk of the 203rd Expedition no doubt moving to tear the Xenos raiders to pieces as she ran onward.

As for the boarders, scum-sucking xenos wretches they were? _Feh..._ They'd gone and doomed themselves the moment they stepped foot on the _Daggerline._

And Ruby? Ruby...She was a smart girl, if a bit painfully naive of course when it came to others despite the violence she'd seen across a childhood in the lower decks. Maybe a tad idealistic, but smart nonetheless not to mention quick on her feet. She knew how to keep herself out of trouble, having been doing it for most of her adult life. Scurrying beneath the notice of Tech Priests and Astartes until her talents had become all but impossible to ignore.

Yang had accepted that much...but an Eldar wouldn't care about such things would they?

No, not when they were executing all in their wake with an abandon typical to the stories of Xenos she'd grown up hearing. Cruel escapades of fallen cultures and insidious alien minds. The very thought of a girl Ruby stumbling into the path of one of such creatures, or even worse one of the World Eaters caught up in the thrall of the Nails...

" _Ruby_!?"

The thought of one of those giants in white dashing a small mantle-clad body aside as an afterthought, uncaring and exalted on bloodlust. Of chain weapons carving and cutting, maiming and tearing. Khalos Reid's face locked in a rictus of searing primal anger, hefting a familiar head topped with red hair by gauntleted fingers as a sickening trophy...

"No, no no please _NO_!"

She had to find Ruby before it was too late, had to make sure she was safe, needed to...!?

Yang floundered to a clanging halt clutching for her sword's leather hilt in a white-knuckled grip, panting for breaths that had suddenly garnered a cloying stench of copper and iron lingering heavy on stale air. A familiar stench, one that had surrounded her since her earliest days, the aftermath of savage violence and what's more it was _fresh._

Suddenly very much aware of her own isolation along the arterial gangways and passage sections she advanced, slow and cautious, hugging the arched walls and lingering in the shadows best she could until giving it up as pointless folly after the third time her sheathed sword clattered off the wall without her meaning it too.

Besides, the only inhabitants of the corridor she stumbled upon wouldn't have likely cared a damn either way. Not in their current condition...

"Oh by the fugging gods!" Old habits of Remnant spilled from her mouth unbidden. Stomach lurching uncomfortably at the sight of bodies slumped against offal stained walls or draped across the floor in various states where they had fallen. Several of them, or so she surmised with the air of one used to butchery at scale.

Shuddering at the sight of a blackened corpse plasma-burned and discarded like so much refuse in the middle of the causeway, a charred hand twisted into a gnarled claw reaching towards her. Face burned beyond all recognition, yet somehow sparking a note of familiarity. Some others proving more difficult to ascertain, having been succinctly cut down or cut apart to base elements of human construction. Limbs truncated, arteries severed...each corpse sporting the drab colored bulk hard suits denoting militarized ratings...Armsmen, a whole response team perhaps?

Plenty of blood, plenty of red, enough to fill an abattoir, but...but not _that_ red she noted with a guilty sigh of momentary relief followed by renewed awareness. Lilac eyes swiftly spotting two key factors that stuck out from the savagery.

Firstly the odd two corpses out, sheathed in ochre carapace of sleek inhuman design, whatever grace the Eldar might have held erased in death and the absence of most of its torso. The shells that remained eerily human in aspect if only at a glance, and a short one at that. Yang thanking whatever logic or powers existed in an uncaring universe that whatever visage they might have carried were concealed behind a sculpted helm all lithe curves and sleek edges.

Then of course the other anomaly in her expectations, the one that spoke back...

 **"Just going to stand there gawking, are you?"**

"Wha, I-I don't...?"

The presence of another conscious soul far more abrupt, and in a way far more surprising given the death surrounding them. An Armsman of all things addressing her, a live one at that in rather stark contrast to his fellows despite being almost painted crimson in gore. Kneeling down a ways along the gangway in the lee of an arched balustrade of savaged plasteel and gnarled copper wiring. Face and expression hidden behind a tinted visor flecked with cracks, and his hands working diligently at...

 **"By all the...! Deaf, _Meyla_!?"**

Yang winced taken aback, drawing her stare away from the young woman he was hunched over and currently from the looks of it trying to aid.

An officer going by the pips on her armour. Her own helmet removed to reveal a delicate face pale and streaked with cold sweat and chocolate brown hair dyed thick with caramel and clotted with vitae. Mouth contorted in agonized whimpers as his gloves applied firm pressure to a bleeding rent in her side that had neatly punctured her own suit through and through. A perfect thrust, meant to hurt and linger...

 **"Help me, damn you! I can sew up the tear, but I need more hands to stem the vein!"**

"R-Right!" She said with a nod, shaking off her unease at the sight of what was clearly a Dust crystal jangling off the wounded Armswoman's belt and scurrying forward beside him. Almost managing to trip over a discarded rotor-cannon as she went. Her hands pressing into the open wound, blood and vital fluids oozing languidly between her fingertips like warm sludge, finding the leak...

Angron's bloody balls...that the woman had lasted as long as she had was a miracle in itself, or the dumbest of luck. The blade that had stuck her having come within a hair's breadth of something truly vital and far harder to fix.

"What...What happened?"

 **"What do you think happened!?"** The Armsman snapped back, hands retrieving the hard-cased outline of an emergency medi-pack from the pouches at his belt after several long second's searching and fumbling. **_"_ Damned Xenos got em'. Wandered into the thick of it and...come now you _uskit'r...ah,_ there we are." **He growled between what sounded like clenched teeth, holding up a length of twine and antiseptics. Yang not quite able to keep the sympathetic groan from her throat as she caught sight of the atomizer affixed to the vial.

"If you weren't with them, then where's the rest of your...?" She'd been about to ask where the others of his unit were, why he was alone. That answer clear enough after a moment's thought, even without the copious amounts of red staining the front of his over-sized hardsuit. Those particular fluids not his own given how well he was moving.

A man could only lose so much before he got sluggish and clumsy after all, she knew that too...

 **"Will be** **needing those big arms of yours, _Meyla_!"**

"On it, and _er_...' _Meyla_ '?"

 **"Aye, girl, it's a word. Now keep the pressure firm and...not there! Lower, you've two eyes too, don't ya? Use em'!"** Yang tensed, warm copper spritzing across her face. Staining her hair as she moved to correct her mistake, her patient squirming fitfully in her grasp. **"Good, hold er' steady weight now, this is gonna sting something fierce. She'll struggle"**

Not like she needed any reminding of that, having been on the receiving end of such medicinals numerous times in the Pits.

Enough to know that, while bluntly effective at its purpose of sterilizing wounds, the caustic substance also happened to burn like a right bitch in heat. Applied to a wound like this...suffice it to say she readied herself appropriately, and even then had a time keeping the Naval enforcer's writhing frame back in place. Shrill screams ringing through the halls kilometers distant, overwhelming even the madness occurring just outside the hull.

For a moment she wondered if it wouldn't have simply been easier, kinder even, to knock the poor lass out. Spare her some grief.

A quick crack across the temple to get her to lie still and keep the operation, if it could even be called that, as clean as possible without the usual mess she'd seen all too often in the Apothecarion. To her own shock and awe however it seemed her gruff companion had the matter well in hand...or hands. Easily accommodating her own broad figure and the rocking of both patient and theater, pressing in deftly with needle and twine in hand.

Calm smooth motions throughout, and though it couldn't have been comfortable it was by far one of the cleanest jobs she'd seen done by anyone not of the Astartes and possessive of their inhuman dexterity. Still, she could've done with less screaming, more used to witty banter and cursing after a fight. Thankfully the Officer passed out pretty early on, having howled herself into mewling exhaustion.

"Do you _uh_...need me to do anything?" She asked after more than a minute in this new tense half-silence, fixated on the work and her role in it. "I can...?"

 **"Be quiet? Aye, just for a few _more...hmph."_** He pulled the last threat and tied it off, falling back on his haunches with a contented hum. **"There, should about do."**

"You think so?" Yang said, not quite so convinced as she examined the Naval Trooper's slumped figure. "Lotta blood."

 **"Seen far worse, _Meyla_. With fortune, she'll last...I think."**

"Damn, used to the _knitty_ gritty, then?" She'd voiced the pun without meaning to, a desire for levity taking hold despite the stress of the situation. Ready for a rebuke, a groan, something...but certainly not _anything._ The chuckle catching her off guard as the Armsman medicae's hands drifted towards his helmet clasps. "Oooh, liked that, eh? Can't say I blame...you...Dad?""

Her voice trailed off as the helm was removed throwing what was beneath into the all too immediate relief of emergency lumens, he hand finding his arm in an instant in crushing grasp.

Eyes going wide as saucers while drifting back to old Remnant. Older memories of a smiling face ruffling her hair lovingly, blue eyes shining downcast as he sat alone at a table in their old kitchen staring out at soaring birds along the horizon. One she'd last seen hanging from a belt locked in slack-jawed...but that couldn't be...

"Hmm?" The man said, a blonde brow rising incomprehensibly at her sudden sullenness. His hand rising hesitantly towards hers. "What's that?"

"N-Nothing, it's nothing." Grimacing, she bit her tongue and released him. Sense slowly overriding shock as the incongruities began to show through a facade built of old guilt.

The resemblance to Taiyang Xiao Long uncanny though that was all it merely was, a passing resemblance.

This man's face similar in age if made leaner with slight deprivation and eyes of a stunning wild blue. Close shaven hair of dirtied blonde stained dark with sweat where her father's had been going subtly to grey despite his best efforts. Stubble running thick across sharp pale cheekbones remarkably lacking in the scars or scroll work she'd been expecting.

From the looks of him, this man had never so much as broken his nose, gouged an eye or a cracked a single tooth. Frankly, if she had to say so she'd consider this man actually halfway handsome if not downright pretty by her usual standard. Awkward as that was given the earlier confusion, of course.

Most men and even a few women she'd seen in her time aboard the _Daggerline_ were remarkably united in that battered aspect, a holdover aped and inspired by the Legion's habit of wearing theirs openly without shame. The young woman lying between them showing more than enough evidence along her neck of old scarification and tattoos hidden beneath the glamour and good looks of her face.

Yang even picked out a few of them at a glance as belonging to some enginarium sump rats prevalent years before, a story in flesh and blood of where this particular armsmen must've sprung up from. She herself still bore more than her fair share of totemic gang markings earned from her time in the underdecks, burned and cut during those early desperate months before Khalos had come for her, then of course there was the red triumph rope coiled tight about her side.

Her victories worn with pride without a black twist to mar them...Proof that she was strong. She'd always had to be to protect...!? By the gods, how could she have almost forgotten...!? In the aftermath of the initial rush of adrenaline there was only...!

"...do you think you're going?"

"...!?"

Yang realized abruptly that she was on her feet and the man speaking to her, picking at his cheek absently. Remembering a moment too late the blood coating his hands with a grunting curse that would've had her Father washing his mouth out with soap.

"Ain't safe, not by far. Alone and barely armed." His eyes drifted to the steel hanging at her waist and then the wounded officer stirring weakly on the deck. Then the others, the ones not moving... "Will get yourself killed _,_ butchered like...like this lot."

Something made him hold his tongue, remorse, fear, anger...she couldn't be certain. Nor did she find she much cared at present, another rattle of distant impact juddering through the Frigate's wry bones.

"Nowhere on this ship is 'safe', if you haven't figured!" Yang spat back vehemently in flavored Nagrikali, cursing the meaningless distraction as she stooped down towards a discarded stubber in ignorance of the gore draped across it. She'd seen far worse in her time, and knew intimately such would do little to smother the weapon's hardy spirit...if such things truly mattered or existed at all. Pausing only to look back at the man bearing a painfully familiar visage. "And it's Yang, not ' _Meyla'_ or whatever..."

"Baldr." He finished the unspoken question, his handsome face hard set into a sharp line of disapproval. Not something she much enjoyed seeing on a face so like her Father's, making her feel a child all over again... "And you're a damned fool. Whatever you're searching for, it isn't worth it."

"Well tough, _she_ is. Silver eyes and damned adorable as a corgi."

He frowned, though whether at the description itself or at words unfamiliar she could fathom. All Yang noticed was the sudden tension in the air, remembering the lascarbine the Armsman had at his side and tightening her own grip on the stubber.

"So...what? You gonna try and stop me, Baldy?"

"I still need help with this one, Meyla." He motioned to the brunette, still leaking despite the sutures all pale and trembling. "Can't leave er' alone, and I can't carry er' there and still expect what's on the inside to stay that way."

The livid wound weeping blood and other fluids incessantly...not blood, poison? Did the Xenos use envenomed blades? Was that it, leeching her life away on the grille-decking just like the old drawings and pictures in history books her Father would take away when he found her reading, scolding her all the while until she fled in tears.

The only times he'd ever seemed genuinely angry with her, or maybe at himself? Histories of the old Kingdoms, of bitter wars and Grimm attacks on innocent settlements...replete with excellent reminders for why a Huntsman did his duty, full of morbid curiosities for his daughter...one that had wanted to be a Huntress.

No one would ever know if she decided to pull the trigger now. No one, especially seeing as that second-class armswoman wasn't going to be talking anytime soon if at all by the look of her. Hell, to some it might even be considered a mercy to end her here. One daughter of Remnant to another, quick if not exactly clean.

Over in moments with a clean thrust, then she'd be free to go find her sister.

Her sister...the one that had also wanted to be a Huntress when she grew up, just like Summer Rose, just like Mom. If they could see her now...

With more grace than she might've expected, Baldr said little. Simply shifting aside as she dropped the stubber in favor of the armswoman's svelte figure, moving into best position to keep pressure on the wound as she handled the dead weight of body armour and slack muscle with pitiful ease.

"Thank you, Yang." He finally gave voice after they had gone a few steps shaking steps after another tremor rocked the _Daggerline_ , not even bothering to hide his caution behind a smile as he set to task keeping the young woman's insides where they belonged. "I...thank you."

She nodded, then promptly told him to ' _Eat shit'_ in the gutter slang of Nagrakali. Hefting the young woman along as gingerly as she could, gritting her teeth at the whimpering in her ear.

Such wasn't difficult, the encumbrance as nothing to the requirements of servicing Astartes warplate.

Nothing to the burden of what she knew in her heart she was abandoning, unable even to weep for the choice she'd made. She'd learned long ago such things meant little and helped even less. Instead she felt only anger, much as the Astartes she both despised and admired.

Anger at her sorry excuse for a life and what could've been but for a turn of fate. Bitterness for her duty and the morals she'd wanted so much to leave behind, and above all a smoldering loathing for...

* * *

 **-III-**

...the Xenos closing the distance between itself and the fleeing serfs rapidly, Blake yanking Ruby around another corner as another drawn out scream pealed through along the walls, swiftly slienced.

Another rating caught, the latest of several. The hunters gaining ground moment by tumultuous moment in their capering advance, skirting the lattice network of winding passages and cramped side-corridors with a preternatural ease of a sort Blake had only ever seen displayed by the transhuman Legiones Astartes.

They, and the Huntsmen and Huntresses of distant Remnant to an unsubtle lesser degree, she reminded herself. This stray reminder bolstered by the gasping little waif she dragged behind her by the arm, the youth's crimson mantle fluttering wildly behind them near lost in the red of strobing emergency lumens. To her desperate hope, she'd imagined that the cloak might've provided some small camouflage to shadow their passage. Her inhuman eyes granting clarity to the dark surrounding them, an advantage of the Faunus even her Lord had complimented.

With these thoughts they could escape, with these advantages it was...!

"Keep... _hah..._ keep moving! There's...I think there's some old maintenance barrows around here somewhere, the Beowolves _er_...one of the crew-gangs, uses them for stowage and such! I-I'm sure it was...!"

...Childish...it was childish.

Utterly foolish as the notion might have been in a reality where fabric strains and snaps at air, and where xenos technology can scent the air itself for their spore. But as the Apostles of the Word were oft so fond of repeating in their cruelty 'the mortal psyche was never one to discard the fanciful in attempts to assure its own survival', even if such was only ever in their own heads.

It is the rare mind that ever wishes to believe it is doomed, that the fates have ever so cruelly decided to snuff it out as one might a candle. And even if the mind is sick, the body will ever seek out any excuse, any chance no matter how base and leap upon them.

The drowning man struggles to breach a dwindling surface they imagine is so close at hand, the hanged flails in their efforts to glean just one more gasp of air before blackness takes them, and two foolish young women sought to evade the creatures that had come upon them as they sought to flee the Embarkation Deck. Listening all the while to the terrified screams of those who by chance had fled before them echoing in both their heads, bodies coming apart under the gleeful attentions of scarcely visible flechettes or humming power blades wielded by artists of the craft centuries in the making.

She had even drawn the blade her Master had seen fit to allow her to forge for herself as reward to past successes. A gently curved piece of folded steel black as the void, ornamented with the Colchisian rune for 'Shrouded'...or perhaps 'Pet', her Master having never specified which and she having never seen fit to ask. The overall design further combined with that of a short range light-caliber autopistol set within the hilt in a manner Chaplain Viridis had described as ' _Intriguing_ '. An implement of Remnant, one to which she felt inclined.

It was a potent weapon, a tool that had stolen lives for causes personal and ill-favored over more than a decade aboard the ships of the once-faithful. She'd bared it on the Embarkation Deck, seeking to fight, to defend herself and this strange new charge of hers.

Then she'd laid eyes on the foe, and all thought of resistance fled from her.

Remembering vividly how the sleek armoured creatures had moved as they slaughtered, deft in each calculated step. Every thrust and cut cast with that keenest attention to form and efficient economy such that no human, perhaps not even among the Astartes, could truly hope to match...or so it appeared. Feeling for a moment, just the briefest instant, that strange appreciation of the bloodshed as if watching a Huntress hewing down Grimm on after the other in succession.

Only to be left then the mounting horror as one realized that despite the similarities, nothing about the Aeldari was human or even faunus in nature. Their perceptions as they were, utterly alien. A feeling fostered by the comprehension of the massacre she'd just witnessed dawning as the little girl beside her stood pale and stunned.

Soulless lenses gleaming as alien eyes fell upon them in kind, mute with a disdain that was near palpable. A familiar feeling was that helplessness, to be marked out as lesser, to be as nothing before a being of far more consummate violence. That Blake knew all too well, in both lives...

And so they'd fled the scene. A pair of corsairs giving chase in that flowing gait that was at once both delicate and deliberate, graciously granting them a head start, delighting in it even. That hopelessness born of the chase, the feline reduced to the position of rodent in the trap threatening to overwhelm her, to leave her shivering and...!?

"...lessed Emperor of All Mankind _...hah..._ shie-shield and guide His loyal servants in this...this darkest hour...!"

Blake almost stumbled, wondering for a moment how this young girl of Remnant she'd dragged with her on a sentimental whim had gotten ahead of her, outpacing her even. Though not abandoning the Faunus, no, instead gasping between breaths those verses and beliefs to steel her supposed companion's flagging resolve.

"...a-as we defy the Alien! As we seek the succor of His gaze, by His will ah...Come on, Miss Blake! This way, we're...we're almost there, I know it!"

Such vigor in the words, the concern softened by hope and confidence shaken by her own experience. And yet she still cared...this girl would have made a fine Huntress of Remnant had the Imperium and the XIIth hadn't come for her. A dangerous stray thought, but far from unwelcome.

All this the acolyte decided in a heated moment of pause as the girl struggled to place their position in her mind's mental map of the ship. Long-standing familiarity challenged by the chaos of the alarms and the rocking of the great vessel underfoot, even a home seeming a stranger in the presence of pressing danger. Mounting panic forcing mistakes, slowing reactions.

But yet the girl kept trying, refusing to give into panic and despair. Her grip strong on Blake's arm, small and oil stained as it was. Strange, this whole situation should be nigh hopeless...

"Might He...Might He illuminate our path, His ideals our guiding light in the shadow of old terrors...!" Still Ruby pulled on, making for a narrow passage identical in many respects to those before. The same humid dampness clinging to the walls, the same flickering lumen strips suffering under disrepair...yet this one seemingly distinct enough to elicit recognition in this child of silver eyes. Eyes which should have become dulled steel in the presence of bloodthirsty savages such as the World Eaters but still showed with hope. "This...This is it, down here! Just a bit further!"

"...Praise be..." Blake's whispered entreaty spilled from her lips, her eyes wide with renewed belief as she sought to follow the younger woman.

Her gaze lifting from the ground to see clear to the way ahead, their destination little more than a handful of blisters in warped deck plating widened further to delve deep into the bowels of the ancient frigate, formed by years of stress and strain. Through them, one could vanish into a labyrinth that extended throughout and even between different levels.

The fronts of these further secured by scrap iron and detritus marked out by the crude depiction of that ancient terror of Remnant clearly visible to her innate night senses.

And it was then the Faunus' breath caught in her throat, fear sour in her mouth and numb across her extremities.

Not for the Beowolf, that dark lupine beast with skeletal visage and eyes that burned like hot coals, no. The Creatures of Grimm, once things so terrifying, had long since been eclipsed by other greater horrors, such as those Transhuman Legions which had seen an end to them.

" _Ruby_!"

No, her terror was reserved solely for the sleek armoured shape clinging to the ceiling of the passage, tucked away in the shadowed arch above them in a manner that defied human flexibility. Thinking itself invisible to the human chaff it had cornered, unnoticed in the shadows...ignorant that one of the prey it sought was not so human as she first appeared, nor so helpless.

Even so, it took the years of harsh conditioning under Viridis poised alongside the innate strengthening properties of her own Aura to reach for the red-hooded girl's mantle and yank her back with a startled yelp as the alien fell silently from on high. The dulled luster of a curved sabre appearing in hand shimmering with a subtle power field, striking out with preternatural speed to catch the Faunus that had denied it its prey in a single decapitating stroke before it had even hit the ground.

A single perfect cut parting ebon-haired head from the curiously agile mon-keigh whelp's shoulders effortlessly, a stunned expression of disbelief and fear still showing in those amber orbs as edge found throat...

* * *

 **-IV-**

Ruby was about to scream forth a denial, her eyes wide in horrified stupor and a hand reaching to grasp her mouth.

The dark armored Eldar that had bled so suddenly from the shadows having landed before her with sword neatly drawn, poised after a killing stroke. That same humming blade which had cast Blake's head tumbling towards the deck...one of the faithful who had pulled Ruby backwards and taken the blow meant for her. The woman's body still standing rigid against logic with the shock of sudden ending...

Ruby had seen many such sights, too many. Those refusing to believe they were dead.

Yes, indeed she wanted to scream, but then she realized that the grip on her cloak was still present, still strong to the point of choking her.

It had yanked her back, her eyes flicking to her side where Blake -still whole if panting heavily from exertion- stood beside her. Her robes abandoned to reveal the sleek black body-glove beneath, that wonderfully modified sword clutched tight in hand. Whenever had found the time to draw that? When had she even moved, and...and how was she even still...!?

Nonplussed, Ruby openly gaped as the decapitated false image of Blake suddenly vanished with a flutter of sheared fabric much to the surprise of the Xenos who still seemed taken aback by the deception.

The real thing by contrast sparing no time in lunging forward into a knifing thrust that scoured sparks from Eldar plate but didn't penetrate the strange alien materiel that seemed to shift and writhe under duress, the Xenos snarling in trilling agitation nevertheless from the blow that had pushed it back a step and the follow up trio of autopistol rounds that struck its shoulder and chest.

And then once more it was in motion, almost faster than Ruby's eyes could follow it launched itself into a flurry of attacks aimed at the black haired maiden.

One stroke only just parried along the edge of Blake's sword which was spared destruction only by the Aura channels by its wielder, the swing carrying behind it such strength that the weapon was almost cast from her fingers and she was sent stumbling back immediately on the defensive. Next a probing thrust and feint, each again barely knocked aside though it clipped a few strands of dark hair, leaving a thin streak of red across her cheek.

Ruby Rose had seen enough fights with blades to recognize two skilled practitioners of the art. She'd also seen enough to know Blake, for all her skill, had known she was outclassed before the first stroke, the desperation clear in her expression. A prayer already leaping to the young serf's lips, along with a sense of utter helplessness. If she'd had a proper weapon she could...!

A flourishing riposte, and she watched Blake die once more, or so she thought. The Remnant-born having ducked the strike entirely, utilizing what could only have been the Semblance of an Aura-wielder to close into the Eldar's guard while it was distracted. Her sword blurring in the dark as it moved in a sharp thrust, biting deep between the armour of it's hip and midsection before kicking it with Aura fueled strength straight through one of the barrow panels.

The Corsair sent tumbling end over end into the dark, cursing in its strange musical tongue.

" _Run_!"

For a moment she almost imagined Blake would pursue the creature instead, press home the scant advantage with a fervor and hunger burning in her eyes that Ruby found almost alarming. But then it was gone, sense and concern returning with an almost forced effort of will, and then they were fleeing together once more down the corridor towards the next indent. Towards safety towards...

...towards the outline of an all too slender shadow parsing itself free from the cavernous interior, discarding a cloak of fibrous material that seemed almost to split the light about its folds. Beneath it, a distinctly feminine figure carved in armour of dulled garnet, trimmed with Xenos scroll work. A jewel of eye-startling beauty pulsing at its heart.

An Eldar, this one's head bared to the dim flickering light of the corridor, almond-shaped eyes of dark onyx regarding the fleeing prey from a too perfect face outlined in blonde. One that left her oddly enough thinking of Yang, the strands a cold metallic lustre rather than her sister's warm locks, the expression bringing Ruby and Blake skidding to a halt, the Shadow poised with Ruby sheltered behind her.

The inhumanity of the features staring back, the way it... _she..._ seemed to convey a dozen expressions and yet none at all. None either woman could discern with any clarity.

All this before it... _she_... dropped the slumped body of a filty looking crew-rating at her feet. A youth his face tattooed in the aspect of a creature of Grimm...the fate of the so-named ' _Beowolves_ ' beyond all but certain in her mind as she beheld the fine sabre of bone and polished gems that glowed eerily in the lacking light of a ship struggling to draw the energies it needed to sustain its flagging defenses.

A stirring from behind and an intake of breath from Blake signalling the reappearance of the other Eldar behind them, its hand stained crimson with the effort of stemming the wound Blake had inflicted.

They were trapped, like rodents...

" _Ika, cre-Dris. Chom ika vas_." The female intoned in a voice free of a helm's distortion, possessive of a cadence somehow conveying vehement disgust and a sliver of respect all at once in speech beyond their understanding. Soft with the tenor of centuries, hard with learned edge of superiority unmistakable. "You ran well, and far, little _Mon-keigh_...little _Dris-Till_ with your gifted curiosities. Take pride in that you surprised, but this chase is done with."

She brought the sword to bear with a flourish that in its simplicity betrayed near perfection, its edge caressing the air itself with a breathless sigh Ruby imagined she could almost hear.

A thing of terrible wonder to behold, like the fire burning down a home or a storm venting its wrath upon a coast. But Ruby's eyes were focused more upon the small bracelet hanging about the hilt, crude and imperfect in comparison to those fashioned to fit the weapon. A trophy...a piece of Dust, claimed from one of their people. A remnant of Remnant, stolen.

"Why?"

Such a simple question, sounding almost childish. The same humanity had asked since the notion of death first registered as conscious terror in the mind of her species, but Ruby still had to give it voice. Her voice strangely calm despite the flood of terror threatening to unmake her, but the Xenos could see it in her wide silver eyes. Eyes it sought out with a strange emotion that might've been fascination, or mayhaps something more? The young faithful's mind racing, despite her best efforts to reign such in, to stand tall like Yang would.

How many times had something asked her killer this same question? How many of her own people? Would it hurt? Would the Emperor gaze upon her with mercy, despite her cowardice? What would Yang do when she heard? Throne...was Yang even still alive?

So many questions...but she'd only asked it the one.

"Why, indeed? That such as you would be a blade along the _Aeldari's_ path, marked by us, it beggars belief in the prattling of fools."

The subtlest tilt of her head and the other Eldar was in motion even as Ruby tried and failed to comprehend her meaning, the alien's sword dismissed in favor of a long barreled pistol unerringly pointed at her dark haired companion. Its same variety, Ruby knew, having cut cut down many across the embarkation deck only minutes before in a hail of viciously sharpened projectiles.

One that would do quite the same to Blake, she imagined, Aura's scant protections or no...

"Dispose of it swiftly if you will, our time grows ever shorter." Blake stiffened, bringing her sword up in a fighting stance broken by inevitability and the muttered prayer on her lips. The blonde Eldar turning her own focus to the shorter and more youthful of the two, that avaricious air about her still present, touched by...by desperation on the edge of a blade? _"Thara angau-nos gorash,_ Eldrad. The _Arith_ _Roisin_ is mine to claim, not theirs."

 **"No, she is mine, wretch."** A blunt but familiar snarl laced by vox-static, a voice she knew. One that had visited infrequently throughout a childhood lived in the underdecks, having ensured her safety in a world of violence, desperation, and deprivation with his brand across her shoulder.

Khalos Reid, Sergeant of the World Eaters 12th Company and her Sister's Lord, had come for her. Had come to kill for _her_...

His arrival declared amidst the thunderous roar of a bolt pistol's sudden discharge. The noise of it falling painfully Ruby's ears in such echoing confines, a spray of wet warmth and a sudden shock of pain slicing across her temple enough to drive a cry from dry lips before Blake tackled her aside bodily into a sheltered alcove, something striking her head.

Silvery eyes blurred by tears glanced through dark hair into the corridor beyond, a mind pushed to the brink attempting to process what she was seeing through a sudden pallor of blood dripping across her vision.

The Corsair that had been advancing on Blake with murder in its gait was dead, killed instantly as the mass-reactive round had struck the back of its neck where the armour overlapped, shattering vertebrae under the impact. The resulting detonation in the aftermath merely ensured the deed, eliminating most everything above the shoulder in a welter of crimson-flecked mist, bone, and armour fragments.

Such was simply the violence of bolt weaponry that it was likely a piece of this detritus that had struck her, having seen more than a few such incidents in those rarest instances Yang had been able to shadow her about the Company training cages above. A tool of brutal potency.

A fitting mirror to the warriors that carried them into battle and enacted the God Emperor's will, His Legiones Astartes.

One of which having appeared like a storm upon the scene, attacking in such a frenzy of rapid movement her mind struggled process despite long years familiarity. Through one eye glimpsing a fearsome warrior garbed in pearlescent white and cool azure edged with dented brass already displaying signs of prior engagement against the invaders. The scarred visage she knew to lay beneath concealed behind a snarling helm that faced the sole remaining Eldar as it was caught between escape and its prey. Suffering for that moment's hesitation, drawn into the World Eater's preferred killing range in the time it took Ruby's heart to quiver thrice.

Through the other still blinking blood, she witnessed a monstrous giant slavering with heavy breaths thick with hissing saliva that grew larger until he filled her world. Painted in red with a bolt pistol clutched tight in one gauntlet firing again and again in painful succession as he'd charged at combat pace towards the weaving profile of the alien, the other encased in a crackling power fist she'd have recognized anywhere...

It was hers and her sister's child after all. A year spent slaving to craft a working design from records ' _borrowed_ ' from Martian Adepts, a further six months of fine tuning and more to see it brought to life.

 _Ember Celica_ , and She was beautiful...but Ruby had never desired to see her put to such use up close.

The aggressive Spirit within roused to wakefulness as if sensing a Mother's presence, _Ember Celica's_ power field blazed to brilliant burning life at the speed of transhuman impulse, just as she'd been designed. Ribbed power couplings feeling blessed energy into actuators of Ruby's own devising, their motivation directing the weapon upwards in what should have been a cumbersome swing the Eldar would have side-stepped with greater agility. Khalos Reid however was no novice to the weapon's application, a weapon that had been made with him as model no less.

A weapon of two sisters made for him, to serve and kill for him...

His fist shot forward in a swift jab and back swing belying its size and bolstered by subtle modification, catching the xenos off guard and almost ending it there but for her flexibility in evading. The curved blade scything through the air, carving a long gash across a shoulder pauldron as the Space Marine twisted on his heel and wove back with the unexpected agility of his breed.

For all his bulk and cumbersome armour he moved not as some lumbering ogre as one might have expected when first viewing an Astartes, but as ranging hound testing the endurance of his prey. Loping rapidly mounting aggression, utilizing weapon and bulk to drive the opponent into a corner from whence it couldn't escape so easily.

Faster, stronger, more forward, no backwards steps. Only aggression, only attacking, even as sword carved deep gashed in gorget and poleyn. Such was the truth of the XIIth Legion, and Khalos would prefer it no other way. Growing bolder and faster with each passing second as the Butcher's insistence compounded, with each mounting injury, some even biting deep enough to draw oozing lines of bright red across white.

Such things couldn't stop a World Eater, not with the rocking of the ship and his anger at the Eldar's temerity spurred by the pain engines ticking in his skull and wounds already clotting with the God Emperor's physiological blessing. But his opponent was no easy prey, the hound fighting a bladed spirit.

Probing swings and jabs thrust towards a more agile foe dancing with sword and an artist's poise. The pair's duel ringing across the hallway in the crackle of conflicting power fields as weapons parried and swung, bodies moving the retreat and advance with the tides of opportunity. The growls of Mark IV Astartes warplate and silent footfalls, the scuffing of metal underfoot and grunts of exertion as opposed to tittering laughter and sighs of severed air.

Ruby and Blake witnessed it all, tucked in their hiding place, Blake before her with her blade in hand held limply as if to counter any attack forthcoming.

A pyrrhic gesture, this swiftly proving a fight beyond even her skill to contribute to. Her eyes barely able to follow the World Eater but for his size to indicate position, the corsair herself impossible to keep track of, the ghostly cloak about her shoulders stealing all perspective by which to judge. At one moment she was behind him, delivering a cut across cuisses into thigh, and another she was a top him, blade skittering across helm and pauldron in attempt to find purchase.

A dozen times the little Rose thought her caught, _Ember Celica_ closing around her figure only to catch at shadows. Blake stirring, seeing the resemblance to her own Semblance, born not of soul but of skill...too much skill to match.

 _"Vi Losseainn atram menshad eadar."_ The alien murderess crooned in manner that oozed taunt, spine contorting sidelong to avoid the screaming pair of a bolt rounds fired at close range. "You struggle this day, and for what!? _Mon-keigh_ thing!"

Twirling with an acrobat's poise from an untenable position about his broad frame, she brought sabre she bore writhing about at an angle Ruby hadn't even conceived to sever the weapon's squared profile before the astartes could draw it back. Scrap metal thudding to the deck alongside what the serf realized with a roiling cold pit in her gut were the Space Marine's index, middle, and ring fingers. Still wrapped about the pistol's trigger and grip...still sheathed in ceramite rolls, steaming with the stomach-churning aroma of flash burned meat.

Rather than scream at the mutilation or retreat, Khalos merely snarled and pressed forward as his armour's systems registered injury and administered stimms to compensate.

He had to catch hold of her. if he could do such, he could kill her. Sweeping ruined gauntlet, but only succeeding in driving the Eldar back in a pirouette. A counter riposte carving a fresh furrow across his forearm and elbow, brilliant blood pouring from the injured limb as it hung lip at his side under the weight of dead armour and snipped tendons.

"Your ending, the ending of your misbegotten breed, of your entire pitiful race! It is already written in the skeins, _Zenil_ _Toill_! _Carrec harras,_ damned to the bloody design of thirsting powers. Bound to a throne of death and carnage you don't even see before you!"

She stalked forward with all the hatred and malice of a Grimm, her own diatribe poison in her expression tainting the otherness of her beauty. Such a sneer of contempt palpable, her disgust writ in ever darting step and slice of the blade working flensing itself across pauldron, vambrace, curiass...a sadistic demise by a dozen cuts. Each deeper than the last and left Khalos stumbling on a leg that would no longer receive his weight.

Growls once strong now little more than wheezing gasps, a lung punctured in an exchange she hadn't noticed before painted across his chest. The double heartbeat frantic in its intensity with the adrenal stimms needed to sustain function...

"Such blind foolishness, such arrogance! And yet offered chance to be of service to your betters, you still refuse...!"

She brought her sword up in clinical flourish, her stance set to deliver the killing blow. Ruby had seen enough bouts end in _Sanguis Extremis,_ she knew well the signs of an execution...Khalos was about to die. Her Lord would fall to the Xenos, and with it hope of escape. She needed to aid him, she needed to do something, or Blake could move in his defense...but there was no need, a mistake born of naivety.

To a son of Angron there could be no thought of defense, the Butcher's Nails would naught allow it.

Only the hammering in the meat of his brain, only the fury building thunder in his hearts, only the mewling meat before his eyes and what was needed to see it torn apart. He'd been grasping at shades wrought by technology and cunning, unable to land a decisive blow to end the xenos bitch...He must catch her, but to do so would require...

* * *

 **-V-**

...the slender point of the singing sabre parsing through protective layers of ablative ceramite and corrugated plasteel. Piercing folds of muscle tissue and fused bone to burst out the other end in a spray of crimson that painted the corridor...Ruby screaming into her hands as she fell to her knees, gaze widening in horror as Khalos lurched bodily into the thrust as though to drag the sword in deeper. Wondering if the Nails had finally bitten true and taken hold in raw madness.

And madness perhaps it was, but Blake saw intention in the act. Just as the Eldar had if a step too late to prevent what next occurred.

A thrust which should've severed the spine and primary heart with the cut, cast with such speed it would have been difficult to dodge aside from even at his best.

So Reid didn't even make attempt, jinking at the last moment in a display of impressive disregard to pierce abdomen instead. Lodging itself in sinew and fibre bundles rather than the organ or delicate bone she had intended. A savage wrench of the body, further invigorated by the servos in his armour, tore the blade from her hand. Dragging a shrill cry from her throat as the motion shattered the bones of her wrist and fingers.

Reeling back in shock at the pain she tried to flee, to slink away but Khalos wouldn't allow such a thing despite the weapon rending through his side. He had the advantage now, Blake all too familiar of the lengths to which one of the Legiones Astartes could push themselves.

What loping grace he'd possessed before lost to savage physicality and the bite of the pain engines at work, the Space Marine lunged forward like a rabid dog running down prey. Snatching the Eldar up in _Ember Celica's_ tender grasp before she could do more than scream at the handling, driving the face of his helmet into her face before pinning her against a corrugated bulkhead to dangle in a massive fist.

She hadn't needed Faunus senses to hear the driftwood snap of cartilage and the cracking of ribs as she his the wall, knowing the battle had reached its climax and loosing the breath she'd been holding. Both combatants heaving in place on a tenuous precipice, both refusing to look away from the other's gore slicked countenance...one staring the cold emotionless green lenses staring with utter dispassion, the other am expression of utter shock, pained fear, stubborn pride.

" _Eadar hel kaela..._ to..to throw yourself upon my blade..." Her voice had lost much of its poise but none of the arrogance, even thick with mucous and blood as it was from a shattered nose and punctured insides. She still struggled even then, grasping weakly for the sabre sheathed in his side with her good arm only for Khalos to turn aside from her reach. "F-Finish me, Mon-keigh! Finish me, now! _Toill..._ Butcher of...of the Blood God...!"

Blake tensed at the declaration, the hidden meaning said out loud. Her gorge rising as she looked from the vindictive half smile on the Eldar's face towards the World Eater hunched before her standing still as a stature. The only signs he still breathed the whine of servo-motors straining across his armour, fighting to keep the xenos aloft and helpless. But the rage was there, the malice working at his mind crooning to be sated.

Khalos Reid could not know the meaning of what she referred to, not one such as him.

Unable to fathom the breadth of the path eightfold set in brass and blood before him, before his Father and the whole of his Legion. Unaware of the whispers conveyed in the ramblings of fell prophets committed in the Word Bearer's chapels, or from those irreverent shades briefly overheard in the dark of corridors seldom traveled, yet never forgotten as their tepid words scoured themselves across her soul.

No...the Eater of Worlds could know none of these things, but he could kill the creature in an instant with a thought and a muscle twitch.

An instant's pressure, a heartbeat within the wrath of the power fist's disruptive corona, and she would trouble him nor anyone else no more. Swift, messy, such the hallmark of his Legion, and yet still he hesitated. Those heartless lenses looking towards the discarded rating she'd left to bleed across the deck alongside so many others. The _Daggerline_ itself shaking once more to its core, the Eldar's companions raining further harm down upon the frigate with each passing moment.

How many had they slain in total this day? How many serfs, crew, soldiers and Astartes? How many had this one slain herself with that sword bleeding lines across his plate?

From what Blake saw, Khalos Reid couldn't find it in himself to care. How odd, how expected.

But then his gaze found Ruby herself, her hands clasped before her, mouth moving in silent benediction she herself prayed he'd not understand. It was then he tensed in a sigh, fibre-muscle bundles snarling for him as head snapped back to regard a xenos privateer who was no longer smiling, no longer so confident.

 **"That one is mine."**

He stressed in a manner strangely flat with only the barest hint of what lay roiling beneath. Repeating his claim of before with the barest twitch of the helm towards the little Rose staring up at him, naive to what Blake had already seen.

 **"You, Wretch, have hunted what is mine. Tried to take from me what is mine. Such...arrogance."**

His trapped prey's eyes bulged in their sockets, whether it be the result of her own insult being thrown back at her, or from the slowly mounting pressure of the gauntlet upon her chest. Armour rattling as was the bulkhead behind her under the mounting vice, esoteric sigil and carefully crafted seal bending and groaning beneath the weight.

" **The Aeldari are a prideful breed, I hear. Let us test that."**

And with that challenge spoken, he began to push forward ever so slowly towards the bulkhead.

Acting with a tenderness near anathema to his gene-line and a rejection the Nails screeching across his cerebellum, he sought to crush the alien between himself and the unforgiving lattice of plasteel. Certain in the knowledge that she felt every moment as the air was driven inexorably from her chest, naught to be replaced while her body shuddered and gasped bloodily like a beached fish for what it could.

It was all too much for Ruby who turned away swiftly in her innocence, retching into a corner and trying to disappear within the folds of her mantle. Blake however was transfixed in morbid fascination, drawn into the experience by a plethora of sensations beyond a normal human.

Hearing the heart beating time in its chest, already far in excess of human limitations, quickening all the more to the sound of groaning metal and pliant flesh. The gauntlet's index finger finding the wall with a whisper of ceramite, punctuated by the snap of something inside her chest and leaping to her stomach...the Eldar's silent facade breaking with a terrified howl of pain and panic both.

Composure in shambles, it flailed desperately at the implacable weight of the Space Marine bearing down upon her slight frame. A broken fist colliding against the snarling helm that never wavered as the ring finger made contact with the wall, her fingers digging at the ceramite binding her to the wall and succeeding only in muddying the golden scales of the entwined serpentine dragons painted across the chassis.

Nothing worked, and the unbearable pressure only continued to increase.

Spasms wracking the corsair maiden as it mouthed words at its killer, be they curses or pleas she hadn't the strength to give them voice. Khalos didn't care for such things, listening only for that final * _SNAP*_ as all the fingers of the massive gauntlet met a wall distorted and buckled, the Eldar fallen silent several seconds before with a final wracking cough flecked black.

The entire corridor, the whole of the ship, seeming to join her...and then came the sound of horns blaring across the vox-receivers. A tonal chorus, signaling survival, signalling the only outcome that mattered...

 **"Blood."** The Eater of Worlds grunted with a shivering snarl thick with saliva, the twitches and muscle spasms of an abused brain returning in earnest, forcing him back from his handiwork. Armour settling as effluvia splattered to the floor, the pulsating stone sphere in its chest popping free to clink across the deck towards the feet of the paralyzed serfs. Somehow seeming all the brighter, all the more somber than before in the dim light... **"Blood for the Primarch, Skulls for His legion. Victory _...Victory for the Twelfth_!"**

* * *

 ** _\- Log Terminated -_**

* * *

 ** _A/N: So I've got to apologize for how long this has story has sat idle. Life and other projects has been taking precedence, plus the changes in the chapter itself. New sections were added, bits sprinkled in here and there including that last part. I can only hope this chapter was worth the wait regardless._**

 ** _Thank you all, and please feel free to leave your thoughts if so inclined. It only serves to make the story better. - Mojo_**


	8. Chapter 8

_**(Disclaimer: I don't claim to own RWBY or Warhammer, those strictly fall under the purview of Roosterteeth and Games Workshop. This is just a passion project.)**_

* * *

 **\- Remnants of Remnant -**

* * *

 ** _Aftermath & Arrival_**

* * *

 ** _We'll strain and we'll work and we'll toil,_**

 ** _In the blood, sweat, grease and the oil,_**

 ** _From the moment we wake, 'Til our bodies break,_**

 ** _With the lash to keep us all loyal._**

\- Chanted by Rating work parties during hard labour

* * *

 **-I-**

 **(XIIth Legiones Astartes Frigate "** ** _Daggerline_** **", 005.M31 Approx. - Command Bridge)**

Khalos Reid finds himself standing at uneasy rest, stationed high above the organized madness of a mortal crew at their inglorious tasks far below amidst chirruping console and flickering holo. Positioned as he was amidst the bustling strategium at the arm of the barren command throne, its lining still stained with the leavings of its former occupant.

The spoiled reek of it, iron scented by the sour effluence of sweat and terror cut abruptly and violently short...

To his annoyance, he doesn't quite recall venturing to this space to stand alongside his Captain. He knows surely he must have marched the winding myriad corridors leading to the command level. Varren currently engaged the thankless task of guiding the ship proper as he had near tirelessly for the past weeks. The Space Marine's intimidating bulk surrounded by a clamour of mewling mortal deck officers, each desperately requiring their Lord's immediate attentions in regards to every minor detail.

Children, the lot of them, weeping and wailing...

"...how fares...dispatch word to the enginarium crews, I need...deck swabs work faster, whip their hides raw if you must...?"

Khalos tried to remember, yet the memories swam turgid in his eidetic recollection.

Indistinct, experienced in a dream but for those raw moments of emotion. The annoyances of a path waylaid by suited work crews, that heady stink of kill-pheromones and old blood that accompanied a passing legion brother, and always ship's own arrhythmic heartbeat as its wounded bulk plied an ungraceful path through the shoals of the immaterium.

Such was not unfamiliar by any means, always the same in the aftermath of pitched combat...

The chemically enriched hyper-adrenaline ekes itself from his system in languid runnels despite the efforts of his transhuman constitution. This passing akin to withdrawals one might see in some stimm-addled wretch on any backwater hive sump, exacerbated by the constant thrumming of the massive shipboard power stations and various drive couplings that struggled day and night to keep the Gellar field stable and the monolithic drive engines running hot.

"...the hand seems...care little for your mewling excuses...look at me when I...!"

Such was to be expected, most of his brothers staving off their frustrations through frantic action. Confining themselves to the _Daggerline's_ Fighting Pits and training cages clashing blade against lobotomised combat automata or similarly afflicted kindred. Others kept the urgings at bay by other less conventional means, such unique to every legionary who felt the bite of the Nails.

All would of course soon pass given time and the anticipation of the Warmaster's call to arms, but never fast enough. And the craving was as always ever present until the moment they stood under an alien sky, weapon in hand and an enemy at the fore ripe for the blooding. Just the thought of it...

His armour, though freshly restored by the hand of Xiao Long, snarls and groans traitorously with fidgeted half-checked reactions spurred by a quickened pulse that kicks his secondary heart in his chest. Tonal indications of fury checked if not wholly satisfied, not satisfied by far.

Internal systems attempting to reconcile the misfiring synapses of its wielder's abused nervous system into active motion. The feedback a steady burn making itself felt about the radius of his carapace's synaptic interface shunts, leaving naught but raw irritated nerves and prickling flesh. A butcher's tune ticking behind his eyes punishing the enforced inaction, urging violent motion against a _foe...any_ foe...anything, anyone it mattered not. To simply feel the thrilling judder of a weapon in hand hacking meat, of bone snapping beneath palm and the warm patina of lifeblood across his face.

Feelings denied, sated, and denied once more until finally...

Khalos felt the scored flesh of his jaw pull back into a scarred grimace, the pain coupled with revelation that he was being addressed and had been for several seconds past without notice. Varren having taken a moment's reprieve from the moment to moment hassles of guiding the _Daggerline_ in the wake of its former Shipmaster's loss to address the one he'd chosen as his second. Dark eyes, pinpricks of white amidst a field of dark stubble and scar tissue, were narrowed in impatient understanding.

"Captain?" No excuse would be given, none was requested. Such was the unfortunate way of things.

"That new hand of yours." His savaged features nodded towards his Brother's left gauntlet, the damage inflicted by the xenos corsair aptly repaired and the fresh strokes of pale white all the more evident for it. Beneath which twitched the reconstructed plasteel composite which had replaced the greater majority of three fingers and much of the palm besides. "Harle tells me that the nerve bonding went without incident or early sign of rejection. It fits you?"

"Suitable enough, aye."

Khalos closed and flexed the limb through an ingrained routine of probing motions, still cognizant of the subtle difference in response between flesh and steel digits beneath the ceramite edifice of his gauntlets. The sensation would fade given time and practice to the point he'd not even notice the change, or so the Apothecary had shared in his usual acerbic trill after the lengthy procedure had been completed.

Somehow, he doubts this is the case.

"It will serve purpose, though there are times I think I'd have preferred the whole limb and simply had done with it." He felt his teeth clench at another spasm of sympathetic sensation, a good sign by all accounts. "Harle, the bastard. He tells me that would have been easier, somehow."

"Given the rate the Company seems to be going through limbs, I'll wager the Chirurgeon knows his craft well enough." Varren voiced, iron-shod teeth flashing in a rare smile in such trying times. "At the very least your wound was earned fighting the enemy. Ghastur from the IIIrd Assault Cadre's lost himself a foot in the Pits hours hence, Erikas among the IVth Tactical an eye trying to stop the bout from going any further. Damned fools the both of them. We're XIIth legion, not the oil-spitting Xth."

"It is because we're XIIth legion." Reid said in simply stated explanation. "Such is how things have always been."

"Not always, and not in my Company." Varren growled openly in a flash of iron teeth, setting several eyes back upon their stations with a scented slick of terror neither legionary acknowledged. "Bloody Apothecary's even making jest of it all, something about us cutting ourselves raw before the Xenos even get the chance."

"Was it amusing, you recall?"

"Not particularly, no. Blighted hacksaw's frustrated, as are we all." The captain loosed a long heady sigh, pensive for a rare moment before turning his broken visage to glower at Reid. Such being his right, though it set a fire burning behind the warrior's scalp. "You more than most, I can smell it on you even without the armour's racket. The Nails biting?"

"When are they ever not?" Khalos said a might bit too quickly, too defensively.

...Whenever he managed to coerce Xiao Long into using her ' _talent_ ', that was when he knew the shadow of relief.

His own unique salve denied him several days hence, the Artificier's time and his own too precious to waste on such negligible details as comfort. Besides to depend on the young woman any more than he already did...

"It will pass, Captain, rest assured. I have it in hand."

Another lie perhaps, but one Varren has heard many times before and would hear again. His Commander was nothing if not a pragmatist, a man who cared for his Brothers and those under his direct command yes, but a pragmatist. Rolling a shoulder pauldron with a whine of protesting armour actuators, the joint damaged by a xenos corsair's desperate attempt to sever the head of the Legion's defensive efforts.

Ironic then, that its own head had sailed far upon meeting the keen edge of the Captain's blade. He'd seen it happen, how the mass of spasming flesh had twitched and mouthed through the air on a geyser of brilliant crimson...

"See that it does and that you do, Brother-Sergeant. I can't have you frightening the mortals overmuch, not when I'm more than they can bear." He glanced for one of those crew officers fast approaching, the man bowing low with eyes lowered like some kicked dog. "Piss awful for morale, and we need them sharp if Twelfth is to make it to the muster in one piece. Control yourself."

The words were direct, as always they were when passing from the Captain's bearded countenance. This in itself more promise than order or request, that in itself a reassurance Khalos found he believed ill deserved when his time finally came. That red day when the Nails finally bit too deep and all that the warrior once known as Khalos Reid had been was washed away in a tide of violence.

Most XIIth Legion commanders would see the thing he would become as just another weapon against the enemy, seeing their former brother as just another butcherhound to be chained. Left to hang in the bilge decks screaming his throat raw until unleashed upon some unsuspecting world to fight his last upon its surface if he at all were fortunate.

Not Macer Varren, the Captain of the 12th would sooner kill Reid himself by his own blade and allow such a forsaken wretch to die with some shred of honour and dignity still intact.

That more than anything was why Khalos followed him since those earliest blood-full days on the radiation scarred landscape of Bodt. That was true brotherhood. That was enough

As if in protest to his thoughts, mayhaps even in response, the _Daggerline_ bucked out from underneath them. The whole of the frigate groaning as something inconceivably massive sheared itself free from those skeins of madness beyond the gellar field and brushed the hull.

A simple touch was all, though it set a half dozen stations sparking in alarm with muted alerts and streaming updates that showed through the red of arterial spray. Several less steady personnel having been thrown from their feet by the abrupt shift in gravity, a servitor spasming bleakly across its station under the thrall of a broken neck. The coward unable to meet the Captain's gaze instead meeting the ground hard with a wet * _crack*_ as bare bone kissed recycled air.

"Throne promise that we make it even that far! The currents of the empyrean are growing more turbulent or so the Navigator says, another irritant. The ship could reach Istvaan in hours for all that mutant knows. Or days, or Weeks." Varren scowled a snarl, stooping to haul the wounded officer to his feet. The lord of the _Daggerline_ caring little for the mangled state of his arm or his keening wail as he was handed roughly into the hands his quivering fellows. Just another display of the inherent weakness of most mortals, even those that served among the gladiator sons. "We've long since lost sight of the rest of the fleet. Curse the blighted Eldar, curse them to whatever whore-spun fate they've earned for themselves in the offing!"

"Death, as those ones deserved." Khalos heard himself saying, the question that had nagged at him these last weeks coming to the fore. "Why did they do it, come for us? They must've known they'd have no chance once committed."

"Does it matter, Khalos? Such matters ill suit those such as us."

The captain dragged forth a nearby suspended brass rimmed armature closer, his hard-edged glower examining the esoteric scrawl of runes and analytics that skittered along the crystalflex screens. Information that formed the neural pathways of the ancient vessel, what might have been intimately understood by one bound to the ship in moments siphoned and slowly eked out in a process that drew for hours.

An exercise in infuriation if ever one existed, Varren having cursed the slain Shipmaster's absence more than once in the time since Khalos first arrived...

"A foolhardy attempt at a raid that turned about on them? Vengeance for some other Legion's assault on one of their world-ships? Who can say? Mankind as a whole has decorated more than a few systems with their spindly carcasses over the course of the Crusade, that's for damned certain." Grunting, he shoved the static-tainted fixture aside into the arms of its blithering adepts minoris. The contents it bore evidently less than favourable, whatever the red robed savants claimed otherwise in their blurting binaric cant. "What matters is the _Daggerline_ endures, or so pretends to. Casualties among crew and company were light by accounts, and the bastards responsible are dead and voided. Let the mortals puzzle out the 'whys' and 'maybes'. We're Eaters of Worlds, and we're expected elsewhere for some other war that needs making."

"I've fought enough Eldar, we both have." Khalos said in reply, eyes hooded and ruminating. "Never nearly so reckless. Never like them to hold untenable ground. If they'd wished to flee, they could have."

"But they didn't, and that troubles you?"

 _"_ One of them took my damned hand, Varren." He proffered up the offending gauntlet, the line of delineation about the severing faint with Xiao Long's efforts. Shoddy as they were... "Little harm in making certain that was all the bitch took in the bargain."

 _"_ And who can tell what makes sense to the Xenos? Not me, certainly not you, I expect. They're dead, Reid, all of them. Let the matter rest, this _and_ the Nails if you can manage it." His tone brooked little argument that one could discern, clearly order more than suggestion.

Brothers they might be, but it was by dint of their long association that Khalos knew well to let the matter rest. For now, anyway, that and it seemed Varren was intent on moving the conversation to less volatile matters. For himself, at least...

"That Remnant-born waif, the one you splintered off from the main contingent to go and safeguard, one of yours I take it?"

"Aye." He said in simple reply, for it technically was the truth. The girl-child, Ruby her name was, did indeed bear his seal upon her flesh at her sister's bequest. "My artificer's kindred. The spare."

Accurate enough, in the decade since first plucking her from that burning backwater he'd rarely deigned to give the child a second thought, content to let her persist in the underdecks and lower bilges among the ratings and other detritus where she could do little harm. Out of sight and out of his true serf's mind, absent until those rare instances when her presence was actually required. Usually dredging Xiao Long from the clutches of a bottle or some other maudlin excuse with some petty word or asinine gesture that would inevitably succeed where hours hard labour and thinly restrained threats had failed.

That had been all she was, a comfort and a tool of opportunity.

A replacement for the day Yang inevitably pushed her luck. More pliable and -if the rumours were to be believed- more talented by far. So much so he had already received several missives from the shipboard Priesthood of the Mechanicum, missives growing steadily harder and more costly to disregard if his armour's state was any indication.

"And best left ignored, it is what the child prefers." He mused, turning his focus on the flashing sea of indicator beacons fluttering between consoles. The smell of sweat and exhaustion permeating the crew. The sound of muttered orders and missives dispatched... "The eldest prefers the crowd, the younger far less so."

"She'll face trouble on that score, then. Seems the mortal crew seems to have picked up on tales of her staring down some Xenos pest with weapon in hand." His superior rattled out a bark of laughter that ended in a characteristic snarl so common to those of the legion. " _Tch_ , you'd think she'd fended the whole damn lot of them off herself with what drivel they're peddling. Ridiculous."

"It is, the Xenos was mine. She and some other female, one of the mortal's sump fighters perhaps, played little part. That child's the least of all." Varren accepted the comment without question, having examined report of the incident himself after the fact. Even asking after this mysterious fighter of which there had been no sign, doubtless believing her some illusion of the Nails.

It would hardly be the first.

"The girl is an irritant, always lurking about where she doesn't belong."

"An irritant who kept herself breathing better than most the Xenos found. Would think you'd be glad of it? Your Artificer too, saved the life of some Officer sporting some minor popularity in the Underdecks."

She did do this, against his orders as it happened. The young woman told to remain safely secured within the armourium...her defiance had been expected, still an annoyance on top of several.

"Another mess to contend with, but at least this one serves a purpose in keeping the bilges in line. Helps them imagine we care. Regardless, she's in hand? Both of them?"

"Xiao Long has proven resilient enough, if one can stomach her moods."

"And the younger sibling was shaken, but any useful servant of the Legion will adapt and overcome. If not..." If not, it wouldn't be an issue. Life, Legion, and Crusade would continue on as ever before. "She's no worry, Captain. Neither are."

"Good. Expecting we'll have more than enough of those to contend with once we've reached Istvaan proper. _If_ we reach it." Sirens began to wail in the distance, pulsing across bronze occulobes. The machine's spirits responding to the ghosted gheists scattered capriciously throughout the wounded non-space of the aether. "Three bloody Primarchs to contend with, _three._ And _s_ omehow I doubt Angron will be satisfied with the prospect of sharing his meal with anyone, even one as lauded as his esteemed brother. We'll need to tread carefully." He loosed an acidic gobbit, caring little for the hiss of burning plasteel in this all too common expression of disdain for their maddened sire.

Khalos for his part drifted back to memories of his first meager glimpse of the Warmaster in person, standing with the rest of the Company alongside Varren in the shadow of the Collegia's god-machines on the triumphal presage of Ullanor. Horus Lupercal, a being so wildly different in aspect to the damaged Angron in almost every conceivable dimension. Noble where his gene-father was savage, triumphant where the Red Angel seemed hunched and suffering always.

Such presence, such pride when the Emperor himself bestowed the title that would shake the foundations of the Crusade to its core...

Such doubts, such worries...Khalos found he couldn't sympathize with his fellow, not in this. This gathering merely another show of force to revitalize the Crusade as it neared its inevitable conclusion.

What would come afterwards, who could say for certain? If Ultramar's scions had their way it would be peace... _peace._ A thing fit for paper-skinned cowards, or those drowning souls who might cling for it so desperately...

* * *

 **-II-**

 **(XIIth Legiones Astartes Frigate "** ** _Daggerline_** **", 005.M31 Approx. - 12th Company Armourium Chambers, 1st Command Squad - Private Cells** **)** **  
**

" _Oi_! Hands to yourself, girl!"

Yang chuckled loosely at the armsman's gruffness, making show of withdrawing a hand from his waist even as it's twin looped around subtly. Groping about blindly until fingers fumbled upon firm purchase, only then she had a sweat-streaked glove firm her mouth pressing her backwards towards the dented portal that lead back to the familiar and the dull...

And then came more cursing in a language she couldn't understand with much of it lost by the grinding of the ship's hull, the whole of the _Daggerline_ lurching once more from underneath. Screams echoing through the halls, from startled crew, the ship's ailing frame, and those not quite beyond the barest edges of the imagination. The motion driving both souls into the dim interior of her chambers scattering stray blankets and ceramite shavings.

Her forced gag removed in a desperate attempt to steady the pair and keep them upright and keep her from choking, her minder thoughtful...so thoughtful...

Never one to be outdone or miss opportunity, she felt her body surging forward eagerly amidst the clamour and clang of displaced tools. Soft lips grazing a firm jawline thick with stubble that had only grown shaggier in the weeks since first meeting. Warm hands bruised and bloodied yet still clutching for firmer purchase against the thick folds of the jacket he'd scored upon the sands with a surprising left cross that had left the fugger who'd sported it first choking on teeth.

Even now the familiar aroma of sweat and iron still clung thick in the air about it, her face drifting to caress collar while callused hands probed beneath the coarse fabric of his tunic. Her head feeling so light but so heavy all at once, thick clotted fluff dragging her down her opposite's frame.

Memories of hours hence swimming in her skull. Billowing bass tones pulsing violently throughout an enclosed cargo bay set aside for weary souls looking for release in waking that the warp tainted nightmares stole away, looking to forget and stay awake. Bodies gyrating, meshed together like the cogs in her Lord's armour...then blood had stained her mouth.

Coppery, warm, and not her own. Someone shouting madness into the din, a fight breaking out as was always the way of the XIIth legion expressed. As though some bloody minded entity had decried the debauchery, tainting it in abject violence she had fallen into as with the rest...someone yanking at her hair, trying to drag her down into the melee by strands of spun gold despite her fist crunching through cartilage...then a fleeting memory of this man, Baldr, pulling her loose from the scrum before the Armsmen on duty, his fellows, had charged in proper.

She should hate him for that, she had gone searching for such release, but more now she wanted to be close to something...someone, anyone. It wasn't right, feelings coloured by the shrieking warp's foul constancy.

"By all the...!? I said _enough_!"

" _Awwww,_ why not?" She mewled a pouting query in tones, easing herself deeper into the attempted embrace. "It's not like I can't tell you aren't interested, everyone else is. I got...!?" A rumble deep in an abused stomach suddenly filled her mouth, clamped down by long experience and sheer effort of will. "I-I got my charms, _eh?_ "

"You've confidence certainly, I'll give you that, Meyla." His body shifted in martial sequence, subtle strength trapping her hands against his side firmly if not painfully, forcing her into an awkward stumble along the way. "But fortunately I don't tend to make habit of bedding children."

"What are...but that's...!?" Trapped as she was she considered throwing a punch, and in a right state she'd have done just that. The roiling in her gut however, combined with the sudden abrupt motion served to keep her compliant. Her motions less aggressive, if anything thankful for the handhold he provided in her heaving. " _Pfft_...what... _mmhm..._ what are you on about now, Baldy? Ya got ten years on me, maybe? Fifteen, if that!?"

Strangely hard to tell with this one, but one's appearance was rarely a certainty in regards to age within the Imperium. Given gene therapy, augmetics, and the odd disfiguring scar thereabouts Baldr could have been absolutely ancient even with the pearly whites and lack of wrinkles. Or maybe it was the fact he...

"You told me I distinctly reminded you of your Father, you recall?" No, no she didn't, but that could be chalked up more to the drink than willful defiance as he marched her step by wavering step. "Hardly a stirring complement, least not in that way it isn't."

Like her Father, had she really...?

It did seem like exactly the sort of sordid detail she'd let slip without meaning to, especially with a bit of distilled Cistern _Sluice_ warming her belly. Meshing affectionately with the caff-riddled stimms she'd sampled earlier courtesy of that saucy minx, Adel who'd bounced back from near death fit as a legionary and all too willing to express her gratitude for a life saved.

An end result that sent a fresh spur of fiery tingles wriggling down her ligaments, kissing her senses like flower petals and left her squirming in the armsman's er...arms? She snickered blithely without remorse or care for the exasperated glower she received in return.

Too far gone for such trivial things, attentions drawn by the pulsing lumen globes swimming in and out of focus overhead. The cocktail swimming about in her blood deadening Yang in a wash of succulent sensation. Ardently chemical bliss...sight, sound, scent, _touch_...her frame wriggling affectionately towards the nearest source of warmth, very much enjoying the latter's sturdy frame - even if said source _waaaaas_ a wee bit scrawny as opposed to her usual tastes.

Too pretty, even with all the scruff...

"Oh who _caaaaares_? Y'know some people are really into that sort've thing. Like there was this one smug old fugger I knew from the Pits. Only ever did evenings, gormless sort, scrappy but no stomach for the bigger fare." She angled her head around, peering upside down through blonde locks in an attempt to see the man's reaction. Even tugging at the hem of her tattered tunic to expose a bit of flushed skin.

Her...friend? Acquaintance, that sounded right...her acquaintance maintaining a commendable attempt at a stone set scowl. Irritating...

" _Hmm..._ almost wanna say he was an Armsman too, come to think of it. Good with his hands...?"

"Aye, ending this conversation here." She grinned, noting the slightest break in his voice, a weakness. But not enough yet, not quite...

" _Foo_...whatever you say, Daddyyyyy!?"

Yang's world spun and her face abruptly thudded roughly against the mouldering flat of her caught, blankets and pillows smothering her laughter as she wriggled and crooned against the coarse synthetic wool's feel on her abused muscles. Baldr cursing her idiocy, tacitly refusing to approach the bed lest she try anything untoward. Arms crossed, content to merely stand by and watch as the Dragon of the Pits giggled herself hoarse against the sheets for several long moments until she finally settled.

He was the good polite sort then, a sad rarity aboard a ship like this. How she'd never met his like before, she couldn't...?

" _Haaah_... ah well, probably for the best." She sighed in bitter agreement, allowing her body to fall back with a heady grown of something not quite contentment. The edge receding swiftly with the budding of what she'd long since figured to be her Aura's spark, tingling along her limbs to ease the aches she knew would plague her soon enough. "Knowing me, I'd have probably woken up regretting it come morning."

"Amount you gulped down, Xiao Long, you'll be regretting more than enough without my input." Said Baldr, teeth flashing white and earning a wet raspberry in reply. The sound childish even to her own ears, devolving quickly into a coughing rasp that turned to further curses and choked laughter.

Then he had to go and ruin it by being responsible...

"Look, Meyla, I know it isn't my place to question..."

"Then don't, maybe?" Yang bit back a growl of smothered rage given fresh air, her voice sharp and the pounding in her skull suddenly returning with a vengeance. Her face digging into the folds of a pillow that smelled far too much of old shames better left forgotten and left to rot. "Don't want to hear it again. Not tonight."

"We're nearing the muster, meaning you won't get many chances left before the Legion calls the both of you." Baldr said, easing himself back against the workbench. Mindful of the thick oil stains oozing from the pieces of what looked to be the savaged carcass of a bolt pistol left to rot in a bed of industrial solvents. Throne of Terra, how many days had she been wandering this time?...

The warp again, always in the midst of travel through the Immaterium, always worse. Or was that just another excuse? It'd grown difficult to tell, or maybe just difficult to accept.

"Talk to the girl. I was the one who forced you into a choice, and so you chose. Blame me, if you wish..."

"I do." And she did. Though not without Taiyang's final bequest in her ear. "By Vale's ashes trust me, I do."

" _Feh..._ duly noted, but regardless you should still make attempt. Apologize for not being there if it makes you feel better about yourself, because I very much doubt whatever this is will help matters."

"It would 'help' if you shut up and minded yer' own fugging business, Baldy." Yang said dryly, biting at her lip and letting the pain spark her Aura. Her soul's light clearing a path through the haze about her thoughts. "If you won't touch me the least you can do is stop dragging my sister up every chance you get, making me second guess myself! Damned creepy, that's what it is!"

"Given that aside from nonsensical attempts at humour she _is_ all you talk about, I don't have much in way of conversation." He said, keeping his voice level as though speaking to a child. Yang finding she didn't much care for that, not one bot. "And of course the underlying tension against your master, how could I forget."

"Oh really? It's underlying?"

"You know full well what I mean, girl. You're predictable, and mess at that."

She applied more pressure as a sudden pulsing behind her eyes, hating that she agreed with the bastard even as she cursed him. Snarling foul recriminations in every language she knew and more than a few she made mangling attempt at guessing.

A tirade lasting several long minutes throughout which the _Daggerline_ bucked and groaned like a hound in heat, her words all spite and vitriol before stretching into even more time spent in sullen silence but for the retching and wet splatter of filth cascading into a bucket he'd kicked her way just in time.

All the while her gentleman-caller merely watched...enduring the sounds and the smells, waiting for her to settle. Discerning her moods almost as well as Ruby somehow, though her sister would've at least had the decency to hold her hair back.

His life seemingly bound to hers since that first maddened journey towards the apothecarion, Coco's slackened weight slumped over one shoulder trying desperately to ignore the woman's pain-addled misery over the loss of her squad. Each sobbing gasp and muttered admission of guilt another bitter reminder that she'd left her blood sister to her fate, and worse of all that it had been _Him_ who'd picked up the slack dropped in her wake.

Khalos...that monster, had done what she hadn't the spirit or the resolve to do. And Ruby had gone and praised him and the Emperor both for deed...the _God-_ Emperor.

Yang admitted to herself now that the reaction to that little revelation had been...heated, and not in the fun way of things. She'd not been herself, or mayhaps too much herself, shouting and cursing above Ruby's frantic pleas and rampant stupidity. Asking how she could be so blind to the dangers of joining a proscribed cult? How she could forget what the Legion would do to her, branded bondswoman or not, machine-blessed or not.

Then that other woman, Blake, all black hair and shining amber eyes, had tried to intervene as if she imagined Ruby was actually in some danger from her...impossible. And in her fury at the insult Yang had lashed out the only way she knew how, only to find she'd somehow wound up on the ground dazed and blinking with her sister crying out her name...she remembered storming away in embarrassed disgust, heedless to tears...Ruby's tears...she hated herself for that. And deserved it.

Baldr for his role in this, claimed to owe her a debt. Arguing that he'd played her emotions and had a hand in what ensued afterwards.

Perhaps he had at that, and now here he was wrapped up in her mess...more a shame for him. And he still stuck around...

"That word, 'Meyla', the one you keep spouting..." Her voice a heaving rasp from the depths of a bucket, almost entirely lost in the wake of the plasma reactor's stuttering tempo and her own weariness. Still, she knew he'd be listening, somehow. A gut feeling, rumbling as it was. "Whasit mean? Homeworld lingo?"

"Isn't it considered rude to ask about such things?" The question was meant to be jovial, the delivery far less so. Thin wiry shoulders rolling blithely as the man played with a piece of the disassembled weapon's firing mechanism, prodding it across the table with a rueful expression writ upon unmarred features. "Or bad luck? Or was it something else? Nothing good, I'd wager."

"Says the lout whose been plying me for drinks and small talk every chance he gets. Looking to score details over some other girl, like some...well, it's rude, y'know?" Not her best crack back, but given she was trying to mend bridges that was likely for the best. Aura sharpening her perceptions moment by moment, in return for a bit of discomfort here and there. By morning, or what passed for such aboard ship, the bruises would've faded significantly. "So...it means?"

For a long instant she was certain she'd gone too far somehow, the man's cool blue eyes narrowing in the dim light and his whole body seemed to tense. This igniting her own instincts, setting her heart aflutter if thankfully for naught.

"'Child'." Baldr said, closing his eyes with a shake of the head as though to clear it. Seeming almost pained, maybe? No, this was different, familiar. "It means 'Child'. Or it used to, at one point or another. Won't find too many who'd know it nowadays from more gibberish. Not many at all."

"I didn't..."

She knew that timbre, feeling instantly a pang of sharp regret keen as a knife to the side. The lower bilges thick with such in those first desperate days of assimilation as those plucked from Remnant's surface, stolen from the ruins of Vale and Vacuo for the most part, vied with those already present to discover a place for them aboard the _Daggerline_ and other vessels of the nascent 28th expedition.

"I shouldn't have asked." Ruby would have done better, acted more endearing with her natural awkwardness to smooth things over. Apologizing after the fact... "Shouldn't have said all that stuff before, either. I don't think you're some lech...er, I mean..."

Yang expected shouting, more cursing, maybe even the sound of the portal slamming open and footsteps retreating. A small part of her even hoped for such if only to escape the awkward tension she'd built for herself now plaguing her ringing skull.

What she hadn't expected was the wave of a hand, the chuckle that sounded far too jovial for this ship, a musical note of a laugh.

"You're young, and in my experience the young often make habit of letting their mouths sail ahead of their minds." It sounded right enough, like something her father might have said to try and seem smarter than he really was. And to hear this face say much the same... "Too much ale and a man's heart is laid open for all to see...or a woman's in this case. A medicae's recommendation, don't blend poisons next time. Sours the mix."

"I'll...I think I'll take that under advisement, Baldy." Said Yang after a long pause, more due to her own struggling attempts to formulate an response. And I...I do appreciate _er_...this." She nodded awkwardly towards the sloshing bucket and the state of her dwelling at large while wiping surreptitiously at her eyes under pretense of a yawn. Nose wrinkling in disgust, for the first time appearing to notice the heady stink of it all. "Usually Ruby's the one who has to...I mean..."

"By it all, just stop while you're ahead, girl." He grunted dryly, his pale gaze lingering for just a moment until swayed by the startled squeak of surprise rising from the half opened portal.

"Yang, you're back! Finally, and you even...you brought a...oh?"

A young woman standing transfixed and perhaps a tad mortified upon the threshold the musty chamber, barely more than a girl at a first glance beneath the rat's nest of dark hair heavily streaked with shades like spilled petals.

Standing near swallowed by the same shapeless grease stained fatigues that shipboard ratings sported the Imperium over, coloured all further by the distinct cultural identity of her legion and the expressive nature of her distant homeworld. Tokens and totemic charms jangled alongside a cobbled together assortment of various hand tools and crimson accents sewn as half preference half necessary repairs and numerous re-fittings.

Tucked within her arms she clutched a dented tin cylinder along with several of what seemed to be Imperial Army issue nutrient blocks scrounged and traded. Beneath it all peeked a small dog-eared booklet though the cover of which remained obscured, clutched tight to heaving chest. The girl evidently having sprinted through the corridors on her self appointed errand.

Her intent and purpose clear from the heady smell of the brew sloshing within, formed no doubt by somber experience.

The child's identity obvious enough to the Armsmen, having listened to enough slurred ramblings and affectionate diatribes courtesy of the golden haired drunkard on the bed to mistake her for any other aboard this blighted ship. Recognizing the crimson mantle draped across her shoulders and the wide silvery eyes regarding him warily after taking in the disheveled state of her kin.

A pup, alert but not without its own bite. She'd not been so spared the World Eater's influence as her elder sister might well have wished, that much was clear at a glance. But she stood confused.

"Who...?" She began, brow furrowing in almost recognition of his features. Searching for something mostly part forgotten, unconscious recollections of blonde hair, weathered features, and kind blue eyes that had seen their own share of sadness... "Who are...?"

"Ruby Rose, I guess it?" He headed her off brusquely with a cough, jabbing a gloved thumb towards one making fine attempt to avoid meeting her younger sister's gaze.

"Aye!" She nodded quickly by reflex, snapping back from whatever memory she inhabited to the current reality of rumbling hull plates and sudden claxons ringing in the distance. Rempant footfalls thundering nearby, both real and imagined to the sounds of shouted orders and muttered prayers for deliverance from the clutches of warpspace. "And you're...Baldy?"

"Close enough." Baldr groaned in resigned irritation, plucking the canister from unresistant hands to sample a draft of the turgid recaf concoction sloughing within. The taste bitter in the extreme and leaving him gasping with face flushed. Horrendously potent, the sort of mixture brewed by the desperate in conditions little better to force laboured bodies into action. Someone clearly having gone to lengths to retrieve it, and no doubt warranted a decent sum in return... _"Nngh..._ She'll be needing that, and a fair bit of rest. Won't spare the morning after, but it won't hurt neither."

And then he was gone, vanished into the press of bodies visible in the corridors beyond the chamber. A press of humanity rife in eager motion, working as one to keep the vessel they sailed upon afloat in the sea of the immaterium on this final undertaking, the clamour almost overwhelming until the chamber rattled shut with a dolorous _*CLUNK*._

Two brighter souls standing alone in the awkward not silence born of thoroughly abused adamantium and plasteel decking and rattling machine scraps, muffled howls issued from what lay beyond the hull, and the constant beat of the _Daggerline's_ reactor heart. The oppressive haunting constancy of warp travel began to abate ever so slightly, felt more than noticed.

"That man, he looks a lot like Dad did, doesn't he? At least I think so, right?" Said Ruby, more to pierce the tension than any true observation as she turned from the bulkhead and made her way towards the worktable. Sweeping aside the clutter as best as she could to set down her own burden, mortified as she was by the state of the poor weapon left to molder alone in the dark. Always a considerate one, even to unfeeling tools and burdensome family... "Not everything, but I can kinda see it. Sorta"

"You don't...?" Yang tried to speak though too soft, too stunned. Ruby continuing on at a rush, wringing her hands over the recaf canister as though it were simply another component to parse apart. The jingling dust crystal strung across her wrist rattling incessantly against the casing in time with a small scrap copper aquila.

"And don't worry yourself over Miss Blake, either. I asked, but she said she thought you would be more comfortable if it was just me." Which was the truth, after a fashion. But to see Ruby petrified as though worried she might...but how could she not? Given how they'd parted. "Thing is I wasn't sure if you wanted to be alone or not either, y'know? But it kinda works out cause I think Miss Blake's trying to avoid people, especially after I let slip it'd been her fighting the Xenos. Actually..."

"Ruby, I..." Still, not enough. Ruby having fallen back on her old habits, unable to remain quiet as she preferred and so endeavored to finish the conversation swiftly. Yang simply propping herself upright.

"...wasn't sure. I know I shouldn't have said anything about it. I didn't mean to, but so many people kept on asking, saying how brave I was and it just sorta slipped out by accident. You know how I get around crowds." A self-depreciating laugh spilling outward from her lips, a shrugging of shoulders considered an ill fit for such a ship, such a legion. So small, so contrary in her refusal to properly adapt and change to reflect her environment... "I actually thought she'd be angry, but no. Even said she understood, that she'd uh...handle it, talk to them I think." Her face scrunched, seeming to taste something sour. An expression of care, of wanting to get the words exactly right. "What I mean is...Miss Blake, she's nice, _really_ nice and smart too. She even went and picked up this peace offering as apology for... _h-hey Yang, what're you...!?_

She stiffened as powerfully built arms of subtle genhanced muscle wrapped themselves about her svelte frame and drew her close with a tender care her sister rarely displayed, and never publicly. Yang Xiao Long, Artificer of the XIIth Legions twelfth company reshaped body and temperament by the ministrations of the World Eaters, famed competitor of the _Daggerline's_ cisterns well known for showy performance and brutal energetic expression in all she did, was hardly a soul prone to gentleness.

Maybe in another life perhaps she could have been more open of such things as genuine affection, a kinder one, but she did so now. And Ruby, despite a bit of suffocation at the sudden warmth of one who had practically raised her, felt herself instinctively drawn to the heat as if it were the absent sun she so vaguely remembered.

"I'm sorry." Yang said, whispering the words in a ragged gasp of hard edged sentiment. Calloused fingers digging deep into the tattered folds of that familiar red hood. "I let you down, I wasn't there. I wasn't there and you almost...you could've been...I almost lost...!?"

"It's alright, Yang, I promise _I'm_ alright." She reached up past the mane of spun gold and stroked a scarred back thick with strength from a lifetime of its own struggles and burdens, mimicking what Yang had done for her countless times and Summer Rose long before that. "Scared though, really scared. Throne of Terra, I thought I was gonna...so many times I thought it would just be over. That the Eldar would, or maybe even Lord Khalos if the Nails...!"

She bit her lip, feeling once more the stark terror of the hunted. Listening to the screams and death cries of those too slow or simply too unfortunate. Many of whom believing as she had. That the God-Emperor would safeguard them, grant them deliverance from the foul inhuman monsters that pursued them.

And yet they had fallen, and she had not...the disregard...the simplicity of slaughter...

Yang sensing this fresh shivering, crooned in her ear. The tune wordless, but that mattered little. Her presence enough to quiet the shivering for the moment, and for a long instant two sisters just knelt there in that dank rattling chamber, surrounded by the trappings of war and death both had learned to craft and maintain with such regard to their potential. One beholden, one enamored, but not at this moment.

And it was in this emotion that Ruby spoke once more, stronger now. Bolstered...

"If that was even a pale shadow of what you felt back on Remnant, on Patch when Lord Khalos first...chose us. I can understand how you could hate him so, I think. If he made you feel such, but it doesn't alter the fact that he also saved me when he didn't have to."

"To keep me in line." A bitter statement delivered with bitter resignation, one both knew to be the truth of fact. "Because of what my Aura can do for him, you know that."

"Maybe, but his actions kept us together even so, and now I'll give thanks to the God-Emperor for every day I...!?"

Ruby faltered, feeling the tension cascading down Yang's body at the mention of what was and what is, at least in her mind. Their first true disagreement, one she found she could accept now what she had struggled to only hours before in endless debates with Blake.

"...for every day His works allow that to keep being possible. That's what I believe, Yang. What I've chosen, even if you won't understand."

"I don't. I really don't. Not after all that's been done and said in His name. To me, to our family, to Remnant, I just can't." Ruby flinched at the hardness of the tone, the implacability inherent in it painful. The knowledge that Yang would likely never be a believer, just as Yatsuhashi had claimed in his sermonizing warnings and Blake her careful doubts.

And yet again, as she so often did, Yang surprised her.

"But I will accept I can't be the one making that choice for you. I wouldn't have been able to on Remnant, back in the day. And I shouldn't be allowed to here despite what Khalos, the Legion, or the Warmaster himself might decree otherwise." Lilac eyes drifting towards the dog-eared leaflet atop her work desk, the careful script embossed across the front and doubtless the flowery words nestled within.

"You're my little sister, Ruby and that means having your back when you need me. Whatever happens, I'm going to do my best to try and remember that. Weirdo cult or no."

"Yang, it's not...!?" Her voice rose indignantly, protests that died away into blankets as Yang dragged the girl down beside her on the cot protectively as the weight of this journey to yet another campaign finally took hold.

Its image a shadow of what they'd once often shared years before in the dark confines of the lower decks amidst the grunting violence and weeping of displaced souls, tucked together for warmth and safety. The simple joy of knowing the other wasn't alone. Ruby nestling into the grasp, comforted in the tickling caress of golden locks brushing against her cheeks. The sense memory playing into older scenes on small world before a small log cabin, a man's kind laughter and a mother's chiding.

"I love you." She breathed, smiling and closing those silvery eyes.

"Love you too, Rubes." Yang echoed the sentiment with a breathless sigh, finally allowing herself the luxury of surrendering to the weight in her head. Exhaustion stealing away the fresh worries and concerns of what might come with this fresh Istvaan Campaign. Things that would come with the morning, the problems and the strains not quite addressed, but for now... "Love you too."

* * *

 _ **\- Log Terminated -**_

* * *

 _ **A/N: Hey all, know its been awhile for this one. Bit of a lull chapter to make up for the continuous action of the last two, a trend not likely to continue given we've finally made it to Istvaan and what is likely to come with it. Happy New Year folks, wherever you may be. - Mojo**_


End file.
